Some 50 people, including four Berkeley city councilmembers, rallied Tuesday at the Maudelle Shirek Building, demanding that federal drug enforcement agents and the Los Angeles Police Department stay out of Berkeley and that the city become a sanctuary for medical marijuana distribution. -more-

Bringing beauty to Berkeley’s ugly Ashby Avenue gateway, cleaning sidewalks, adding security, removing graffiti, creating an improved local transportation system emulating the popular Emery Go Round are just a few of the reasons South West Berkeley’s commercial property owners want to create an assessment district, says Marco Li Mandri, president of New City America and consultant on the South West Berkeley Community Benefits District (CBD) project. -more-

As the date for the courtroom showdown over UC Berkeley’s Memorial Stadium gym draws closer, a paperwork blizzard has begun to blow. -more-

In a 4-0-1 vote Wednesday evening, former Chamber of Commerce Chair Carolyn Henry Golphin was recommended by the Library Board of Trustees as the new trustee. -more-

The fissure dividing Berkeley’s citizen downtown planners trembled anew Tuesday night, but when it was over, the “Big One” still lay ahead. -more-

Tributes to slain Oakland journalist Chauncey Bailey poured in today from prominent politicians as well as from his colleagues in the news business. -more-

With a new treasurer, hi-tech computer software and a lesson in banking skills, Berkeley Councilmember Dona Spring pledged to do a better job of following campaign finance laws. -more-

Affordable Housing Associates (AHA) announced this week that they would give tenants at Allston House on 2121 7th St. the option to be temporarily relocated during the renovation of their toilets beginning Aug. 20. -more-

Robin Gorton was a favorite teacher in the Berkeley Unified School District. With her quick smile, storyteller’s magic, and seemingly unlimited number of puppets, Mrs. Gorton performed hundreds of puppet shows for kindergarten students enrolled in the Cragmont and Oxford schools. -more-

People concerned about impacts of two planned Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL) buildings—one housing the controversial BP-funded Energy Bioscience Institute (EBI)—can raise their questions during a special meeting Wednesday night. -more-

running KPFA -more-

The Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) meeting sponsored by the Transportation Commission on July 24 was even worse than I imagined it would be. The meeting was facilitated by the Chair of the Transportation Commission, Sarah Syed. She treated the people in the room as if they were a group of schoolchildren—rather than concerned Berkeley citizens who had volunteered their time on a weekday evening to weigh in on an important city issue. She was unfriendly and impatient right from the very start. She snapped orders at people and threatened to throw people out of the meeting. What were members of the audience doing that was so unacceptable? Just trying to express concerns about BRT, nothing more. She just would not allow it! -more-

Tuesday night, July 23rd, I witnessed an exercise in mind control in the disguise of a meeting of a transit subcommittee of the Transportation Commis-sion. The subject of the meeting was to discuss the proposed BRT (Bus Rapid Transit) as it affects the South Side area. The meeting was run by the Chair of the Transportation Commission. Most of the attendees have attended more than one meeting about BRT so that the Chair knew many of the attendees by name and their position on this issue. -more-

The rapid pace of proposed development for this town reminds me of post-war development, not only as in post-WW2, but as in post-Civil War. Buildings were decimated; towns pillaged; landscapes burned. People’s lives destroyed. -more-

I was shocked to read in the San Francisco Chronicle in the Matier and Ross column that our Berkeley Rent Board Commissioner Chris Kavanagh is defending an eviction proceeding from his home in Oakland. If these allegations are true, that Mr. Kavangh perjured himself when he signed election papers to seek the position of Berkeley Rent Board Commissioner, then he must be prosecuted for that perjury by the Alameda County District Attorney’s office. If he is not prosecuted, then our election laws, which are sacred, become meaningless and subject to fraud and manipulation by unscrupulous individuals. -more-

In the “Ten Questions for Council-member Dona Spring” (07-20-07), “high rents,” which soak up much of the residents’ income and prevents people from being able to afford to live in Berkeley, was at the top of the pressing issues. -more-

The Planet is to be congratulated. While Matier and Ross broke the story of Chris Kavanagh’s floating domicile, Judith Scherr’s astute reporting adds an awful lot to the picture. Despite filing numerous statements (under penalty of perjury) stating he was a Berkeley tenant, Rent Board Commissioner Chris has apparently lived in Oakland since at least 2001. He has never lived at either 22 Tunnel Road or 2709 Dwight Way, where he has registered to vote. Indeed, he cares so much about his Oakland pad that he is now in court fighting the owner’s effort to move him out. In the meantime, his “residence” is the Elmwood post office. -more-

I have found that the challenge of healthy living is this: to adapt the body that my ancestors carefully evolved to live a particular way of life to the demands of life in twenty-first century Berkeley. What an undertaking! -more-

Some years ago, while I was working for an African-American newspaper in South Carolina called the Charleston Chronicle, a local Black attorney tried to get me to ride down with him to a country community near the Georgia border to talk with some people he was representing. George Payton was a self-promoter who had run for public office several times and would probably be running again, and an incessant talker as well, and the idea of spending a day with him—including four hours alone in a car—just so he could get his name in the paper didn’t appeal to me, so I begged off. -more-

This is a tale about politics, influence, money and murder. It began more than 40 years ago with a bloodletting so massive no one quite knows how many people died. Half a million? A million? Through four decades the story has left a trail of misery and terror. Last month it claimed four peasants, one of them a 27-year old mother. -more-

The Kitchen -more-

Change is inevitable; it’s always reassuring when a change in a good business is in the spirit of the original, an enhancement rather than a trip to the oubliette—for example, when an owner retired and sells the place to people who are familiar with it and like its style already. A breath of fresh air is much better than a tornado where there’s something worth preserving. Oh, Toto! -more-

Ouch! That Quake Hurts! -more-

We’re at war with Germany again, and this time they’re winning. No, it’s not a shooting war but since shooting wars always start with economic pretexts, it’s not a far stretch to talk about shooting wars in conjunction with this war and since it involves energy, it’s easy to point to our differing approaches to the war in Iraq as one example of how they’re winning, both morally and physically. -more-