Fire’s Damage Estimated at $1 Million -more-
A week after Nestle USA-owned PowerBar announced its move from Berkeley to Glendale, Calif., rival company ClifBar confirmed on Wednesday that it will be moving its Berkeley headquarters to Alameda, when the company’s current lease expires in July 2008. -more-
A Berkeley police patrol officer was suspended Wednesday, reportedly after a sting operation focusing on theft of evidence, the Daily Planet has learned. -more-
There seems to have been some confusion over the facts of the Condo Conversion Initiative, which will be before Berkeley voters on the Nov. 7 ballot. As a result, the city may be forced to hire outside attorneys to sue itself to correct possible errors. -more-
Broken Santa Rosa lights at the corner of Parker and Telegraph have been causing difficulties for blind people and other pedestrians. These lights, which are embedded in the roadway and activated by a push button, flash to notify drivers that pedestrians are coming and that they need to stop. On Tuesday morning, the Berkeley Office of Transportation was notified that the light at Parker and Telegraph streets wasn’t working. -more-
By Richard Brenneman -more-
As plans for development at the Ashby BART station continue under a city-designated task force, alternative groups are sprouting up in South Berkeley. -more-
The City of Berkeley’s future plans to re-negotiate its contract with Comcast Corporation, the current provider of cable video services in Berkeley, stand to be threatened if a state-level legislative bill demanding the elimination of the role of local government in the franchise process is passed as early as Monday -more-
Shattuck Cinema workers and union representatives met with management on Wednesday to negotiate pay raises, and other basic demands including uniforms and grievance procedures. -more-
Starting in May, Alameda County will have a new program to handle substance abusers, fulfilling the long-time dreams of Berkeley activists and city officials. -more-
A group of Oakland education and political leaders and activists have given state Sen. Don Perata until Aug. 16 to either meet with them directly or issue a statement opposing the pending sale of the Oakland Unified School District administration building and property and several adjacent schools. -more-
SB39, the bill that authorized the state takeover of the Oakland Unified School District, was introduced in abbreviated form in January 2003 by state Sen. Don Perata, with no details included. -more-
NACOZARI, Sonora, Mexico—Just days after conservative candidate Felipe Calderon declared himself the winner of Mexico’s July 2 presidential election, the Mexican federal labor board lowered the boom on striking miners. At Nacozari, one of the world’s largest copper mines, just a few miles south of Arizona, 1,400 miners have been on strike since March 24. On July 12 the board said they’d abandoned their jobs, and gave the mine’s owner, Grupo Mexico, permission to close down operations. -more-
The battle over landmarking the Bevatron building ended Thursday when a city panel voted to bestow the honorific not on the structure itself but on the ground beneath. -more-
Nestle USA’s announcement last week that it was moving its PowerBar business from Berkeley to Glendale, Calif., has received mixed reactions from the local community. -more-
With the state’s office of the superintendent for public instruction announcing an interim Oakland Unified School District administrator to replace the outgoing Randolph Ward, opposition to the sale of the OUSD downtown properties got a boost in the past few days when two more Oakland public officials came out against the sale. -more-
Berkeley city officials, residents, and local independent wireless providers continue the search for the perfect Internet system that will provide city-wide Internet access to people who live, work, or recreate in Berkeley. -more-
On a sunny afternoon last Sunday, Berkeley residents picked Lisa Anne Stephens, Howard Chong, Chris Kavanagh, Pam Webster and David Blake as candidates for the Rent Stabilization Board. Bob Evans, current Rent Stabilization Board member, although given high marks by the Rent Board’s screening process, was not selected to be on the slate. -more-
Should the South Berkeley branch library at Russell and Martin Luther King be moved to the new Ed Roberts campus to be built at the corner of Woolsey and Adeline? The Berkeley Library Board of Library trustees in Berkeley has allocated close to $25,000 for a consulting firm to do a community needs-based assessment for the South Berkeley library branch this month in an attempt to answer this question. -more-
Although the candidates may not raise it themselves, the battle between Latinos and African Americans for political power in Oakland and the East Bay has already become an issue in the race for the Peralta Community College District Area 7 trustee seat. -more-
Artists living in one of the city’s last West Berkeley creative havens said they fear impacts of a planned new building at 740 Heinz Ave. could end their idyll. -more-
This past Sunday, youth rights activists from around the country, from as far as Washington, D.C., came to the National Youth Rights Association’s (NYRA) annual meeting (www.youthrights.org) in San Francisco to discuss ageism in the community and what progress the individual regional chapters have made to combat it. Five people from NYRA’s Berkeley chapter, including myself, attended the meeting. -more-
MARYSVILLE, Calif.—First it was the long wet spring that took its toll on Sarbjit Johl’s peaches. Then the 10 straight days of triple digit temperatures last week, California’s deadliest hot spell in five decades, cooked the fruit on the trees. -more-
For septuagenarian Jane Jackson, fasting is a way of life. -more-
Armed officers storm home; suspect gone -more-
This week we got a phone call from a polite but persistent guy who asked to speak to the editor—that’s me. When I called him back, he identified himself as the owner of a restaurant which has been advertising once a week in our restaurant guide section, and he said he was so unhappy with the paper’s coverage of the Middle East that he was thinking of canceling his ad. Now, 60 bucks a week one way or the other (those little color ads are almost loss-leader cheap for the advertisers) won’t make or break the budget, so we really don’t have a strong financial interest in arguing with the guy, but I did make an effort to explain two principles to him. First, respectable newspapers don’t let advertisers dictate policy for the editorial section and second, we firmly believe that airing all opinions, even those we find extremely distasteful, is the best way to solve problems in the long run. I pointed out that the Planet didn’t “cover” the Middle East, but just allowed opinions on the news from that area to be printed as letters or commentary signed by the authors. I asked the restaurant owner if he ever read the European press on the Internet, or Ha’aretz, the Israeli paper, or even the New York Times on a regular basis. He said he didn’t. We had a civil discussion, but it was apparent he wasn’t persuaded. -more-
We get a lot of Chicken Little letters around here. For those of you who are folklore-challenged, Chicken Little was the character who thought being hit on the head by an acorn meant that the sky was falling. He put a lot of effort into running around convincing all the animals in the forest to panic, with mixed results. It’s traditionally the job of the press to play the Chicken Little role, so we really can’t complain when our readers tell us to write more about climate change, or the on-going struggles in the Middle East, or the attempt by Bush II to dismantle the Constitution of the United States of America. Yes, we’re worried, worried, worried about all of these, and more. This time the sky might really be falling, and what are we going to do about it? But every so often, it’s a good idea to check into what’s going right—all worry and no fun makes Jill a dull girl. -more-
DETROIT—It’s been said before that the debate in Congress over immigration has needlessly gone beyond fixing the core problems within our immigration system. -more-
The irony of “progressive” politics is nowhere more apparent than in the housing policies of the City of Berkeley. -more-
The Aug. 8 edition of the Daily Planet featured two appallingly ludicrous commentaries about the Lebanon war. One was an exercise in the most indulgent of national mythologies: “We are morally superior to Them.” -more-
In regard to recent criticism of press coverage of the takeover of the library by a serial carpetbagging, Bush water-carrying, ex-director Jackie Griffin, I must add the information Loren Linnard (Letters, July 21) left out of her unwarranted criticism of Judith Scherr. -more-
I should not be surprised that the Daily Planet joins in the Arab-European “blame Israel first” school of journalism, but after reading Becky O’Malley’s diatribe against the State of Israel in Tuesday’s edition, I was startled that the paper would publish such an obviously incorrect editorial, so viciously slanted in favor of those who wish to destroy a sovereign nation and its inhabitants. Before throwing her sympathies to the murderers and terrorists, Ms. O’Malley should check the Israel Defense Forces policies regarding military operations in areas with civilian populations, which are the strictest, most moral in the world. She should consider that when the IDF accidentally kills civilians in a military operation, the operation is considered a failure, and everyone in Israel mourns the loss of innocent life. When Hezbollah kills civilians, the operation is considered a success and a cause for celebration. Instead of doing a web search for “dead children,” perhaps Ms. O’Malley should do web search for the IDF Code of Ethics, which includes the doctrine that “[T]he IDF servicemen and women will use their weapons and force only for the purpose of their mission, only to the necessary extent and will maintain their humanity even during combat. IDF soldiers will not use their weapons and force to harm human beings who are not combatants or prisoners of war, and will do all in their power to avoid causing harm to their lives, bodies, dignity and property.” Would Hezbollah or Hamas make the same commitment? -more-
Some people who usually brand Berkeley Daily Planet and Executive Editor Becky O’Malley anti-Semitic have turned up their diatribe to silence a few voices that decry the crimes committed in Lebanon by the Zionist regime. All around the world, there have been demonstrations and protests against the genocide of civilians and children in the hands of Israeli forces. Have you not seen the photos coming from Lebanon? Have you not seen the photos of dead toddlers some with their pacifiers around their necks? Most probably not, because the complicit corporate media in the United States conceals these killings. The media only magnifies news of rockets fired by Lebanese fighters; rockets that are incomparable with the military hardware of the Zionist regime. But know this: So far some 800 Lebanese, mostly civilians and children, have been killed, compared to 80 Israelis, mostly Zionist soldiers. The U.S. media is hard at work to divert the attention of Americans from the destruction of Lebanon by the Zionist regime. You mostly find irrelevant stories, such as same-sex marriage, drunken Mel Gibson, etc., in the U.S. media. While Americans are amused with such stories, the U.S. Congress almost unanimously passed a resolution for full support of the Zionist regime and killing of more Lebanese civilians. Even your favorite politician, Barbara Lee, remained silent when the resolution was put up for vote. -more-
The problem of morally ambiguous religious texts is something I’ve given a great deal of thought to in the past few years. I attended a Jewish seminary from 1996 to 1999, where I struggled to understand the troubling texts, and after graduating life handed me a real and painful spiritual ordeal. I underwent a transformation of my ideas. -more-
Most urban NIMBYs in Berkeley who oppose new developments are not part of an insulated class trying to hang onto their privileges. They are part of a sacrificial class that already lives in or next to high-density areas or transit corridors. They mostly do all the “right” things: walk a lot, drive little, consume little, live in little spaces, have little gardens (if any), and tolerate being a little too crowded. High-income people consume much more, utilize many more resources, and contribute much more to global warming than low-income people. Yet all the detriments of man’s environmental abuse and atonement are borne by the poor and funneled into high-density areas. -more-
In their 1948 American classic book about growing up in Oakland in the early part of the last century, Frank Gilbreth Jr. and Ernestine Gilbreth Carey wrote in Cheaper By The Dozen that their father once discovered one of the more fascinating elements of the human mind—people could pass by a black typewriter every day without stopping or even thinking about it, but a typewriter painted white simply could not be resisted. “For some reason, anyone who sees a white typewriter wants to type on it,” Frank Gilbreth told his children on the day he brought one home and set it on the dining room table. “Don’t ask me why. It’s psychology.” (For those born in the 80’s and beyond and so didn’t live in those times, typewriters—which preceded computers as the thing on which we did our writing—used to come in one color, black. Same with telephones.) -more-
“Bring your own” is a good motto to remember when visiting the neighborhoods of the Berkeley hills. With no shopping district or quaint cafes, there’s little to tempt your dollars. Unless you’re in the market for a home. Then you’re in trouble, big trouble, because what the hills area does offer is hard to resist: a showcase for architectural excellence, eye-filling views, rock outcropping parks, hidden pathways and an appealing sense of space within nature. -more-
Architect Harris Allen had no cookie cutters in his professional tool box. No two of his buildings looked alike—each was designed for its particular site and stamped with the owner’s individuality. -more-
I’m often amazed at the lack of attention paid to places where people can fall, slip or trip around the house (not to mention commercial or municipal buildings). Maybe other people aren’t as clumsy as I am. It is a plus, though, that in my job I seem to be admirably suited to finding any obstacle that might ultimately cause any other person at any future date to slip, trip or fall. No divination required; I’m just the poster boy for smacking your cranium. -more-
One of the hardest things for new gardeners here—both experienced gardeners who move here and long-time locals who get inspired by the goddess Flora—is our dirt. Most of us have to garden on clay soil here, and those of us in the flatlands generally have the heaviest, the historically most stomped-on and sometimes most-contaminated clay. -more-
Part I: To NIMBY, or Not to NIMBY? That is the Question -more-
History will record that the Bush administration was the high-water mark of conservatism, note that during Dubya’s reign conservatives had their chance and failed. What remains to be seen is how liberals will respond: will they continue to be “conservative lite” or will they reformulate liberalism? -more-
I forgot to give my dog, Whiskers, her flea medication and as a result she got fleas. Whiskers sleeps in my bed, so it didn’t take long for me to get the buggers, too. Thus began a three-week spiral into insecticide hell. -more-
About this time last week I was at Yuba Pass in the northern Sierra, swatting the insatiable mosquitoes and watching a family of red-breasted sapsuckers. (There is a Berkeley connection here: some of these birds spend the winter along the coast, and they’re likely to begin showing up in Tilden Park in a couple of months). -more-
The Magnes Museum, the “Jewish Museum of the West,” is currently exhibiting a fine collection of paintings, photographs, works on paper and sculpture from the Jewish Museum in New York. Many of the paintings are by artists of social conscience, such as Ben Shahn, Raphael and Moses Soyer, Peter Blume, Ben Zion, William Gropper and Philip Evergood. -more-
“Imagine a nation where religious fervor runs hot, and faith rhetoric runs hotter.” If you feel your imagination is running behind the headlines, hie you to the outdoors—a park, say, Live Oak this weekend, or Willard on the 26th or 27th—and see those headlines in the flesh but with the faith rhetoric standing on its head, as the San Francisco Mime Troupe girds up for battle with powers and principalities by putting on an act entitled Godfellas. -more-
Earlier this year, Pacific Film Archive presented a series of films by Mikio Naruse, bringing much deserved attention to one of Japan’s greatest filmmakers. Now they’ll follow up with a series on another Japanese master, Kenji Mizoguchi. -more-
“Bring your own” is a good motto to remember when visiting the neighborhoods of the Berkeley hills. With no shopping district or quaint cafes, there’s little to tempt your dollars. Unless you’re in the market for a home. Then you’re in trouble, big trouble, because what the hills area does offer is hard to resist: a showcase for architectural excellence, eye-filling views, rock outcropping parks, hidden pathways and an appealing sense of space within nature. -more-
Architect Harris Allen had no cookie cutters in his professional tool box. No two of his buildings looked alike—each was designed for its particular site and stamped with the owner’s individuality. -more-
I’m often amazed at the lack of attention paid to places where people can fall, slip or trip around the house (not to mention commercial or municipal buildings). Maybe other people aren’t as clumsy as I am. It is a plus, though, that in my job I seem to be admirably suited to finding any obstacle that might ultimately cause any other person at any future date to slip, trip or fall. No divination required; I’m just the poster boy for smacking your cranium. -more-
One of the hardest things for new gardeners here—both experienced gardeners who move here and long-time locals who get inspired by the goddess Flora—is our dirt. Most of us have to garden on clay soil here, and those of us in the flatlands generally have the heaviest, the historically most stomped-on and sometimes most-contaminated clay. -more-
A typographical error in Bob Burnett’s Aug. 8 “Public Eye” column caused a gross underestimation of the U.S. defense budget. The correct figure is approximately $550 billion. -more-
The Typographer’s Dream, Encore Theatre Company’s production of Adam Bock’s play, at Ashby Stage in collaboration with the Shotgun Players (Bock’s closely associated with both troupes), opens with absence that’s sketchily filled in with some undreamlike folderol. -more-
About this time last week I was at Yuba Pass in the northern Sierra, swatting the insatiable mosquitoes and watching a family of red-breasted sapsuckers. (There is a Berkeley connection here: some of these birds spend the winter along the coast, and they’re likely to begin showing up in Tilden Park in a couple of months). -more-
