Columnists

Did Israel know that its settlement policies in the occupied West Bank and Gaza were illegal? Yes, according to a senior legal official who warned the Labor government of Prime Minister Levi Eshkol in September 1967, “that civilian settlement in the administered territories contravenes the explicit provisions of the Fourth Geneva Convention.” -more-

State Sen. Don Perata’s SB67 sideshow vehicle tow bill passed in the Senate this week with no dissenting votes, not surprisingly, and now goes to the desk of Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger for consideration. It will not be surprising if Mr. Schwarzenegger signs it and thus propels it back into law, but it will be sad if he does. Fluidly, easily, without so much as a whimper of complaint from the usual civil liberties lobbies, California lops off a branch of the tree of Constitutional protections—the right of a citizen to due process before the seizure of property. But since the sideshows are so unpopular and the sideshow participants voiceless and unrepresented, we hardly think it matters, and wonder why this columnist—alone amongst all other sources—continues to make a fuss about it. -more-

A hundred years ago, a sizable population of refugees from the 1906 San Francisco earthquake and fire made the East Bay its permanent home. Among the new arrivals were many Italian families, a good number of whom settled in West Berkeley. -more-

Watering plants in containers is both easier and harder than it seems. Everyone has a vice about this, generally a tendency to either overwater or underwater. (If your tendency either way is impossible to reform, you might consider underwater plants. Go on over to Albany Aquarium on San Pablo Avenue just north of Solano and have a look at some nicely planted tanks first.) -more-

Everybody has a little internal list of least favorite ways to die. Some of these are rational, but mostly they’re derived from some fantasy, childhood experience or errant datum we’ve chanced upon. Perhaps we were children and heard an awful story. Maybe we encountered saw someone killed in a movie—lots of those, aren’t there?! Perhaps it was simply a story related by a friend. Regardless of the source we all have these. -more-

Since the invasion of Iraq, in March of 2003, George W. Bush’s rationale for the occupation has continually shifted. On Aug. 22, the White House once again changed its criterion for success. As disturbing as this is, what’s more disturbing is the new justification: keep Iraq from becoming another Vietnam. -more-

Although you wouldn’t expect a book about metabolic ecology to be a page-turner, I found John Whitfield’s recent In the Beat of a Heart: Life, Energy, and the Unity of Nature engrossing. Whitfield, a British science journalist, explains how metabolism relates to size, volume, and surface area. Along the way, he looks at why bats outlive mice, whether humans are allotted a fixed number of heartbeats in their lifetime (astronaut Neil Armstrong said that if that was true, he was damned if he was going to waste any of his jogging), and the tragic fate of Tusko the elephant. -more-