I am a retired octogenarian with graduate level college education, albeit dated, who has endured national crises of many kinds but never in all my years witnessed a financial crisis like the one we’re in now. Every bell of foreboding available to the dominate media sounds the high note of meltdown and catastrophe. People in the know speak and write stuff about bundling and swapping that I can’t understand and point accusing fingers in every direction of the causal compass. The Treasury secretary mournfully submits a three-page solution keyed to legalizing extortion. Professionals of every stripe analyze and analogize. Congress in characteristically spineless fashion approved a humongous cash bailout (or handout) that may or may not help.  

Take this newspaper sub-headline regarding the speedily passed absurd and mystifying Congressional bailout: “Consumers will decide if economy’s in for seismic shift or timeout” (San Francisco Chronicle, Oct. 5). It seems to say that we, you and I, are in charge of the economy, a patent absurdity. It also implies two different metaphoric characterizations for our man-made but not man-controlled economy. It is a geographic entity on which our well-being is subject to seismic dislocation, and it is a game in which we can, if we want to, stop playing and take a rest.  

In short, nothing I’ve heard or read makes sense except that you and I, our children and grandchildren, will be obliged to buy our way out of the deep mess caused by the neglect, greed and venality of our financial and political leaders.

Every day now a new blow seems to send the world’s financial system staggering as it desperately seeks a chance to right itself. Congress passed the $700 billion bailout and things have gotten worse, not better. Now several states, notably California, can’t even raise the money they need to meet payroll because the bond markets are nearly shut down.  

Short-term borrowing rates continue to rise as banks look warily at lending even to each other; banks across northern Europe that are teetering on the brink of collapse have been nationalized or rescued by central governments; central banks are pushing interest rates down in a desperate effort to avoid an economic depression; and, oh yeah, for the first time since the Great Depression the federal government is lending money directly to industrial corporations because the credit markets are paralyzed and without short-term borrowing these companies will not be able to pay their bills and then our entire economy will be in free fall. What gives?  

Well, first of all, that $700 billion that is supposed to buy up all the junk securities that are on the balance sheets of banks and investment houses will not get us out of the woods. It might help stabilize some of the financial institutions so that they will begin to lend again (that’s the hope, anyway) but it isn’t enough to restore faith in the underlying solvency of the world’s banks, big property companies, and investment houses.  

Once the Secretary of the Treasury and the Chairman of the Federal Reserve Bank declared to the world that our entire financial system would melt down without their hastily put together rescue plan, it became necessary to approve some version of the plan if only to avoid the immediate realization of their apocalyptic prophecies. But it’s clear from the series of desperate moves that have come out of the Federal Reserve since last week that the problems dwarf the so-called “bailout.”  

The U.S. stock markets have lost one-third of their value since the start of the year and much of that drubbing has come over the past month. Americans have not spent so much time thinking about the 1930’s since the gasoline lines of the early ‘70s reminded them of the bread lines of the Depression. And now that the crisis has become a bona fide international mess, everyone is wondering how the drama will end.  

A few things seem clear:  

1. The cost to the Treasury at the end of this mess will certainly exceed $700 billion and will likely run into the trillions of dollars. The Federal Reserve has turned itself into the world’s biggest pawn shop, the world’s biggest industrial bank, and generally the world’s biggest money hydrant. In a desperate attempt to jumpstart the world’s credit markets the central bank is providing hundreds of billions of dollars in liquidity to every sector of the economy and accepting almost anything as collateral. Banks and merchant banks can go directly to the Fed for loans and now so can industrial companies like General Electric and FedEx. If any of those companies end up insolvent the taxpayers will have to take the losses.  

2. Inflation worries are on the back burner for now as Federal Reserve chairman Ben Bernanke tries to avert a multi-year recession or even a depression in the real economy. The more afraid the central bankers around the world get the more they are willing to abandon their commitments to keeping inflation under control and so they start cutting interest rates in hopes that cheaper money will jump start lending and more economic activity. That opens our economy to the risk of stagflation, rising prices and no economic growth. Japan has only recently emerged from a long brutal period of stagflation after their bubble economy burst.  

3. Little has been done to address the underlying problem of sinking house prices. The latest study shows that about one in every six homeowners in the United States has a mortgage that is higher than the current value of their house. As house prices continue to fall, those numbers will worsen and the default rate will continue to climb. Until the government establishes a systematic way of organizing workouts between lenders and borrowers, the securities backed by these mortgages will continue to undermine balance sheets around the world.  

4. Many of the banks in the United States will have to be closed or acquired by other healthier banking companies. This is likely to go on for years as their balance sheets deteriorate and the government steps in. Or a more systematic approach can be taken by the regulators who push the weak lenders to sell themselves to the strong ones or face collapse. Here again the government will likely have to backstop the losses and those numbers might be huge.  

5. The Securities and Exchange Commission and the Financial Accounting Standards Board move last week to allow companies to dream up a value for the securities on their books instead of using the “mark to market” rule for valuing their securities will only delay the painful day of reckoning for all those companies with lots of mortgage-backed securities. Essentially, the old rule said you must establish a fair value for your securities by using the price you would get in an active market or the prices similar securities are fetching. That value is what goes on your balance sheet. Of course, currently the market value for a lot of these kinds of securities falls somewhere between fire-sale prices or zero. Mostly it’s not even possible to establish a value because there are no buyers. So the SEC and FASB are saying that banks should pick the value they think these things would be worth if the world’s markets were not collapsing. In other words, “Let’s say its worth what you think it should be worth and later on when things get back to normal we will change that to what it’s really worth.” How this will restore confidence among lenders in the solvency of borrowers is not clear to me.  

6. Hank Paulson and his team at the Treasury Department blew it big time in not developing a Plan B (“What If Things Start Melting Down”) approach to this crisis. Let’s not forget, the credit crisis started in August 2007. Paulson’s 2007 plan to ease the problem went nowhere and it looked for a while as if the markets could settle things themselves. But aren’t the big boys at the top of the world’s largest economy supposed to have a back-up plan in case the markets can’t settle themselves? That seems prudent. But earlier this year officials from the Treasury Department were assuring folks in the California governor’s office that they did not need to worry about Treasury’s plan because things were going to be fine. That would explain why Congress got a slapdash three-page non-plan in September that basically said give me $700 billion now with no questions asked or everything will collapse. Don’t be surprised if the guys at Treasury and the Fed come up with another plan to fix things. Perhaps they will spend more time crafting the next one.  

Most Americans have one eye on the nation’s financial crises and the other on the presidential election. And they are asking themselves, “Is McCain or Obama, the Democrats or the Republicans, better for the economic health of the country as well as for my own financial well-being?” That is the defining question of this election. 

A businessman who voted for Bush twice and Clinton in ‘96, told me, “Barack Obama sounds really impressive and I have to admit that the goals of his social programs—particularly health care, education and the environment—seem good. But I’m worried the Democrats can’t manage the economy as well and they’ll get into my wallet.” 

Many voters agree, and a recent poll shows that an overwhelming majority cite the economy as their top concern. For years the pollsters have found that most voters believe the Republicans do better with the economy. I’ve heard the businessman’s basic point—that the Democrats have better social policies but the Republicans are better managers of the economy— more often than I’ve heard Judy Garland sing “Over the Rainbow.” But is it true? Don’t count on this question being examined and answered in a full, open and honest debate. 

Twenty-eight years ago—with the election of Ronald Reagan—we entered an entirely new phase of presidential politics. The focus since then has been who can raise the most money and package the best media image, rather than who can demonstrate the most competence and capacity to govern. Our country’s political, economic and social life has been reduced to a battle of 15-second sound bites and 30-second commercials, with results reported like a football score. TV news has turned democracy into “duhmocracy.”  

Fortunately, we don’t have to depend on campaign slogans or advertising bucks to frame the debate. We can look to the record. Here’s the Economic Sweepstakes Quiz. The rules are simple. Guess which president since World War II did best on these eight most generally accepted measures of good management of the nation’s economy. You can choose among six Republicans: Eisenhower, Nixon, Ford, Reagan, Bushes I and II; and five Democrats: Truman, Kennedy, Johnson, Carter and Clinton. (No peeking.) 

Which president produced: 

1. The highest growth in the gross domestic product? 

2. The highest growth in jobs? 

3. The biggest increase in personal disposable income after taxes? 

4. The highest growth in industrial production? 

5. The highest growth in hourly wages? 

6. The lowest Misery Index (inflation plus unemployment)? 

7. The lowest inflation? 

8. The largest reduction in the deficit? 

The answers are: 1. Harry Truman, 2. Bill Clinton, 3. Lyndon Johnson, 4. John F. Kennedy, 5. Johnson, 6. Truman, 7. Truman, 8. Clinton. In the Economic Sweepstakes, Democratic presidents trounce Republicans eight times out of eight! 

If this isn’t enough to destroy the myth that the economy has performed better under Republicans, the stock market has also done better under the Democrats. The Dow Jones Industrial Average during the 20th century has risen 7.3 percent on average per year under Republican presidents. Under Democrats, it rose 10.3 percent—which means investors gained a whopping 41 percent more. And the stock market declined further during George W’s two terms. Moreover, since WWII, Democratic presidents have increased the national debt by an average of 3.7 percent per year and Republican presidents have increased it an average of 10.1 percent. During the same time period, Democratic presidents produced, on average, an unemployment rate of 4.8 percent; Republicans, 6.3 percent. That’s the historical record. 

What about economic policies over the past 15 years? The Clinton-Gore administration presided over the longest peacetime economic expansion in our history. The national debt was reduced dramatically, the industrial sector boomed, wages grew and more Americans found jobs. How has the Bush-Cheney team fared? In the past seven years, we have experienced the weakest post-recession job creation cycle since the Great Depression, record deficits, record household debt, a record bankruptcy rate and a substantial increase in poverty. We have gone from being the nation with the biggest budget surplus in history to becoming the nation with the largest deficit in history.  

What is downright frightening is that Bush and John McCain seem to still believe that an unregulated free market will solve America’s economic problems. Obama, on the other hand, maintains that government has the responsibility to keep our economy on the right track and he believes in oversight and accountability to protect American taxpayers. Obama says he will work toward reducing the debt and deficit. He pledges to help the middle class and the working poor by maintaining benefit levels and eligibility for the Earned Income Tax Credit. He will hold the line on our tax progressivity and fairness, by rolling back the Bush tax giveaways to taxpayers earning over $250,000 annually. And Obama wants to target health care, education, affordable housing, alternative energy and the environment with critical investments. 

McCain wants to privatize Social Security and probably Medicare, although he gets dangerously vague about this at election time. To finance government spending in the wake of his tax cuts for the wealthy, Bush has borrowed heavily from the Social Security Trust Fund. It is likely that McCain will do the same. McCain and George W. are mired in the failed economic policies of their Republican predecessors. In 1980, Bush I called supply-side policies “voodoo economics.” But he embraced these “trickle-down” policies in order to become vice-president and then president.  

Reagan and both Bush’s royalist economic policies were failures—a fool’s paradise built on the sands of borrowed time and borrowed money. The consequences were staggering debt, industrial decline, shrinking wages, four painful recessions, increased poverty and structural unemployment. The reckless Reagan-Bush-Bush spending and borrowing has brought us to the brink of social chaos and economic catastrophe. 

With respect to the $700 billion bailout plan, McCain’s position is worth examining as a case study. He has cast himself as a reformer, championing the cause of Main Street, who will take on Wall Street and the bankers. Really! In the ‘80s, when deregulation mania drove the Reagan revolution, McCain was all for it. In the late ‘90s when McCain’s economic guru, former Senator Phil Gramm—chair of the Senate Banking Committee—was muscling through Congress the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act which effectively ended regulation designed to protect Main St. from Wall St.—and a repeat of the Great Depression—McCain was all for it. 

For the past seven-and-a-half years while Bush administration appointees at the federal regulatory agencies turned a blind eye to the greedy machinations of Wall St. and those bankers working the sub-prime market, McCain was all for it. He was four-square against regulation, oversight and accountability. Now that the game plan, and policies, he supported for all those years, has gone belly-up and bankrupt, he’s experienced an instant and remarkable transformation. After consulting his inner central casting he has become the nation’s chief tongue-wagger for reform, regulation and oversight. Poof ... the magic candidate. ‘The Enabler’ has become ‘The Savior’. The hypocrisy is breathtaking.. 

Claims of being a maverick aside, McCain has emerged as nothing more than a supply-sider in the mold of George W. and Reagan. Since George W. took office corporate profits have soared, while workers’ wages and benefits have been flat. That shows just who is the object of Bush’s conservative compassion. And McCain has embraced the very same regressive policies.The facts are that the Bush administration, supported by Republicans on Capital Hill, pushed through a sweeping tax cut in 2001, under which the wealthiest one percent of Americans reaped 43 percent of the gain.  

In less than a year and a half, the federal government’s 10-year projected budget surplus of $1.6 trillion had vanished. In 2000, we had a surplus of $236 billion. In 2004, we had a deficit of $413 billion. This dramatic reversal is the direct consequence of Bush’s tax cuts. Since then, the Bush-McCain answer for the nation’s economic woes have been deregulation and more tax cuts for the wealthy individuals and corporations, who by no coincidence contribute to the McCain campaign. It’s “trickle-down” economics with a vengeance. 

Since the GOP convention, McCain and his surrogates have been pounding away at the Democrats, labeling them as the “tax-and-spend” party. Yet recent research has shown that over 70 percent of our national debt was created by just three Republican presidents. There’s an old expression in Las Vegas, “Figures don’t lie and liars figure.” Moreover, according to research from Professor Larry Bartels of Princeton, real middle class wage growth is double when a Democrat is president, contrasted to a Republican president.  

So, while McCain and Sarah Palin compose hymns to patriotism, rugged individualism, “trickle-down” economics, “staying the course” on Bush’s tax cuts and family values, they are also embracing the very economic policies that both undermine the middle class and subvert the security of American family life. American families need less pious rhetoric, and more policies geared toward a healthy economy, secure jobs, decent health care, affordable housing, quality public education, renewable energy and a sustainable environment.  

McCain seems unable, or unwilling, to grasp that the government has an important leadership role in this. In fact, providing tax giveaways for the rich and for corporate America is the only policy that seems to energize McCain and the Republicans in Congress; while Obama has pledged to repeal those very same giveaways. And contrary to the G.O.P. rhetoric 90 percent of Americans—people making under $112,000 a year in individual income—would pay less taxes under Obama’s tax plan.  

With four more years of McCain continuing Bush’s failed policies we could very well wake up one morning on “the economic endangered nations” list. Deficits and debt could strangle our economy for the next generation, and all but the wealthy will have a tough time making ends meet. Barack Obama has demonstrated a willingness to confront these painful realities. On overall economic policy, he offers qualities indispensable to genuine leadership for America—patience, fairness, candor and vision. We need an administration that understands and believes in coherent, comprehensive and equitable policies that promote sustainable and healthy economic growth—and, on that count, Democrats have a winning record. 

Arthur Blaustein was chairman of the President’s National Advisory Council on Economic Opportunity during the Carter administration and was appointed to the board of the National Endowment for the Humanities by Bill Clinton. He is an adjunct professor at the UC Berkeley, where he teaches urban policy, politics and economic development. His most recent books are Make a Difference and The American Promise. 

The tale of what the Bush administration is up to in the Caucasus is slowly filtering out, although the U.S. media has largely deep-sixed the story. The recent Georgia-Russia war was just one move in a complex chess game aimed at cornering the energy reserves of Central Asia, extending the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) to Moscow’s vulnerable southern border, and ending Russia’s control of the Black Sea. Georgia was just a pawn-an expendable one at that—in a high stakes game. 

While the White House and some in the European Union (EU) represent the recent war as one between an increasingly powerful Russia reasserting itself in its former empire versus a small, democratic nation trying to recover two of its former provinces, that story is fraying a bit. Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili was recently condemned by the EU’s Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights for undemocratic practices, and a recent NATO analysis of the war supports the Russian charge that Tbilisi started the whole affair. The maneuvers that led to the war, however, have gone largely unreported. 

Shortly after the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, the United States moved into Kazakhstan, Central Asia’s richest energy producer. U.S. oil companies, including Chevron, showed up in an effort to pry Kazakhstan away from its leading partners, China and Russia. Kazakh President Nurusultan Nazabayev was wined and dined, campaigning to get his country to send its oil through the trans-Caucasus Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan (BTC) pipeline, thus bypassing Russia and putting China’s energy jugular in Western hands. 

The United States put a full-court press on oil-rich Azerbaijan as well. 

Georgia was on the chess board because the BTC runs thorough that country’s south. The United States cemented control over the pipeline by helping to sponsor the “Rose Revolution” that brought Saakashvili to power in 2003.  

But there was more than oil at stake in all this. 

Starting almost a decade ago, the United States began pressuring fellow NATO member Turkey to modify or abrogate a rather obscure treaty called the Montreux Convention, a 1936 agreement that gives Turkey the right to restrict the passage of warships through the Bosporus Straits and the Dardanelles. The Convention has allowed Turkey and Russia to control the Black Sea and to prevent any foreign power from establishing a major presence there.  

The United States, which was not a party to the original treaty, has pressed Turkey to let it turn the Black Sea into a NATO lake. Turkey is a NATO member, as are Bulgaria and Rumania. The United States already has military bases in Romania. If the Bush administration had succeeded in bringing the Ukraine and Georgia into the Alliance, NATO would have checkmated the Russian fleet at Sevastopol, restricting its access to the Mediterranean and isolating it from the Middle East.  

However, the Americans play a lousy game of chess, particularly if some of the pieces on its side of the board have different agendas.  

Take Turkey, for instance. 

Ankara has not only shown no inclination to dump the Montraux Convention, it has proposed a “Caucasus Stability and Cooperation Pact” that would sideline NATO in favor of a settlement by regional powers. Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan presented the proposal to Moscow shortly after the war. 

“The chief value in the Turkish initiative,” said Russian Foreign Minster Sergei Lavrov, is that it is “common sense” and assumes that “countries belonging to the region themselves should decide how to conduct affairs there.”  

Lavrov went on to add two other “regional” issues that could be dealt with using a similar framework: Iraq and Iran. 

That the Turkish proposal caught the Americans by surprise is an indication of how the United States failed to understand how complex the game of chess is in that region of the world. Turkey is indeed a member of NATO, but it also has its own national interests to consider.  

While Turkish trade with Georgia is $1 billion a year, it’s almost $40 billion with Russia. Turkey also gets 70 percent of its natural gas from Russia. Turkey and Russia have long dominated the Black Sea, and both see it as central to their economic and security interests. If the United States moves large numbers of warships into the area, it won’t just be the Russians who lose control of that body of water. 

Neither are the Turks eager to modify international treaties like the Montreux Convention. Doing so, writes M.K. Bhadrakumar, a career diplomat in the Indian Foreign Service and a former ambassador in the region, “would open a Pandora’s Box. It might well turn out to be a step towards reopening the Lausanne Treaty of 1923, the cornerstone which erected the modern Turkish state out of the debris of the Ottoman Empire.” 

According to Bhadrakumar, the U.S. plan was to bring Kazakhstan into NATO as well. The Kazakh-Russian border is the longest land border shared by any two nations in the world. “It would be a nightmare for Russian security if NATO were to gain a foothold in Kazakhstan,” he says. 

In short, what the United States is up to is the 21st century’s version of the “Great Game,” the competition that pitted 19th century imperial powers against one another in a bid to control Central Asia and the Middle East. 

The move to surround Russia and hinder China’s access to energy is part of the Bush administration’s 2002 “West Point Doctrine,” a strategic posture aimed at preventing the rise of any economic or military competitors.  

When Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice recently said that Russia was facing international isolation over the Georgia war, she was whistling past the graveyard. Rather than being isolated, the Russians have been lining up allies among the very states the United States had hoped would join it in ringing the Russians with newly recruited NATO allies. 

During the recent meeting of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) in the Tajikistan capital of Dushanbe, Kazakh President Nurusultan Nazarbayev assured the Russians they could rely on Kazakhstan for support. “I am amazed that the West simply ignored the fact that Georgian armed forces attacked the peaceful city of Tskhinvali,” said Nazarbayev, “Kazakhstan understands all the measures that have been taken [by Russia] and supports them.” 

The SCO is made up if Russia, China, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan. 

Azerbaijan, another major target for the United States, has kept quiet on the Georgian War, but announced that it was reducing the amount of oil and gas it was shipping through the BTC pipelines and increasing its shipments through Russia and Iran. “We knew there was a risk of political turmoil in Georgia, but we did not expect war,” Elhar Nasirov, vice-president of Azerbaijan’s state oil company, Socar, told the Financial Times. “It’s not a good idea to have all your eggs in one basket, especially when that basket is so fragile.” 

If both Kazakhstan and Azerbaijan balk at using the BTC, it could not only derail U.S. strategy in the region, but the pipeline itself. 

While NATO has tried to put up a united front on Georgia, the Alliance is deeply split between the United States, Britain, Poland and the Baltic States on one side, and France, Germany, Italy, and Spain on the other. In part, the reluctance of the latter group to join Washington’s crusade against Moscow is based on self-interest. Russia is an important trading partner and provides Europe with much of its energy.  

But a number of European countries are also having serious doubts about Georgia’s leader. According to Der Spiegel, NATO intelligence sources back the Russian account of the war, not Georgia’s. “Five weeks after the war in the Caucasus the mood is shifting against Georgian President Saakashvilli,” the newspaper wrote on Sept. 15.  

This shift in sentiment has even been voiced in the U.S. Congress, although it has yet to be reported in any major U.S. media. Addressing the Senate Armed Services Committee Sept. 9, Senator Hillary Clinton said it was not “smart” to isolate Russia over the war and pointedly asked, “Did we embolden the Georgians in any way?” Clinton called for a commission to look into the origins of the war, echoing a similar call by Europe’s foreign ministers meeting in the French city of Avignon. 

At a meeting of the EU’s inter-governmental commission in the Black Sea resort of Sochi, French Prime Minister Francois Fillon said it was important to “strengthen the partnership between the European Union and Russia, and France and Russia.” 

While a Harris Poll shows that some Europeans are now “more concerned” with Russia than they were before the war, the same poll shows the United States is still considered a far more serious “threat to global stability.” The poll also indicates overwhelming opposition in Germany, France, Italy, Spain and Britain to increasing military spending in the aftermath of the Georgian war. Indeed, any government that presses for a more aggressive posture toward Russia, or knuckes under to Washington’s pressure to increase military spending, is likely to find itself out of power. 

The Georgian war, like the Iraq war, were disasters brought on by a combination of imperial arrogance and fundamental cluelessness. The United States now finds itself locked into a military stalemate in Iraq and Afghanistan, increasingly isolated in the Middle East and Central Asia, and enmeshed in one of the greatest financial meltdowns in its history.  

Check. 

This is how empires end.

An African-American politician once told me that when he was newly elected to the South Carolina State Legislature in the early 1970s—making him somewhat of an oddity in a statehouse that spawned John C. Calhoun and Pitchfork Ben Tillman—a group of moderate white legislators offered to show him around the state capitol, and even to help him pick up a girlfriend. He declined the help with the girlfriend, saying he’d been doing that pretty well on his own since he’d been a sophomore in high school. 

I sometimes feel that way about some of my good friends in the media and the blogsphere and Oakland political life about criticisms of the administration of Mayor Ron Dellums. From time to time, these good friends chastise me for not joining in their particular criticisms, calling me, among other things, a “Dellums supporter” (as if that is a pejorative) or a “Dellums apologist,” or even implying that I am a “black racist” because I won’t join the mob beating up on a black man. 

My answer to these chastisements is twofold. 

The first is, as they say in my neighborhood, I’m a grown-ass man, and can come up with my own criticisms of the Dellums administration. I’ve voiced these criticisms in this column from time to time, for those who care to read the whole things, and not just go in and pick out the parts that strike them wrong. 

The second thing is, I’ve paid close attention to the frequent critics of Mr. Dellums, and don’t join with them because I found many of those criticisms to be off base—not grounded in fact but more in fancy—and have also noted a deep strain of inconsistency in many of these criticisms. 

Want examples? I’ve got a couple. 

First comes the recent odd entry by Oakland developer-politician Phil Tagami, who made news in mid-September by publicly calling on Mr. Dellums to fill out a weekly time sheet. 

A Sept. 18 story posted on the KTVU Channel 2 website reads that Mr. Tagami “wants to make certain that Mayor Ron Dellums is earning his almost $200,000 annual salary and working a full eight-hour day by requiring that the mayor to fill out a weekly timesheet. … ‘This action of improving Oakland requires daily contact and that is what the essence of this is,’ explains Tagami. ‘Washington is a little different; a little more abstract, Oakland and a city with our issues requires daily tending.’ Tagami says Dellums gets a full day’s wage even though in his eyes the mayor doesn’t put in a full day’s work. He wants to change the city charter to require timesheets for all city staff.” 

What makes this request odd? A year ago, Mr. Tagami was publicly expressing quite the opposite opinion. 

In an Aug. 10, 2007 letter to the editor to the East Bay Business Times, Mr. Tagami wrote, “Recently, many local media outlets and disgruntled individuals have attempted to cast a shadow on City Hall and any notion that good work is happening there. Having spent the past 20 years working with and volunteering for Oakland, its mayors and other elected officials, I respectfully ask those who feel obligated to promote a pessimistic view to consider taking another look. Recently, I met with Mayor Ron Dellums and his staff to discuss my company’s progress on local and minority hiring for the Fox Theater Project. I found the mayor and his staff engaged, prepared and willing to invest the time to listen and energy to lead. As I left the mayor’s office I realized how much activity was afoot to advance the Oakland agenda. I feel confident in expressing that Dellums and his staff are hard at work for Oakland.” 

Three months later, Mr. Tagami expressed similar opinions in the San Francisco Business Times. In a Nov. 23, 2007 article assessing Mr. Dellums’ first year in office, the Business Times wrote, “Ten months into his term, Dellums wins praise for his commitment to ambitious, meticulous, long-term strategies that could eventually produce sweeping change in the city. Developer Phil Tagami, who has worked closely with the last three mayors, said: ‘Elihu Harris is a policy wonk, he brought a Sacramento form of government to Oakland. Jerry Brown was a deconstructionist with the bureaucracy and he could accomplish this because of his celebrity. Ron Dellums is an icon; he freed Nelson Mandela and is a rally point for activism. Each Mayor has their strengths and weaknesses operationally.’” The article included a correction from an earlier version because the paper said that the earlier version gave the mistaken impression that Mr. Tagami was a “critic” rather than a “supporter” of Mr. Dellums. 

Certainly, people have the right to change their minds as their perceptions change or new information comes in. But when they do so, if they are to be taken seriously, they ought to provide some information as to how and why that change came about, particularly when a change is so radical. For my part, I don’t see anything different from Mr. Dellums’ work style in August or November of last year and October of this. But perhaps Mr. Tagami can enlighten us. 

We had been counting on our good friend, San Francisco Chronicle East Bay columnist Chip Johnson, to keep up the consistent attacks on Mr. Dellums, but even he has suddenly taken to waffling. 

Two weeks ago, in a column entitled “It’s Time For Oakland To Give Dellums The Boot,” Mr. Johnson concluded that the Dellums administration was a mistake, and urged Oakland voters to “step up” and support a Recall Dellums petition “to correct Oakland’s course before the city goes down.” Mr. Johnson’s Sept. 23rd conclusion comes at the end of almost two years of columns severely critical of Mr. Dellums. 

Last Friday, however, Mr. Johnson completely reversed course. 

“Oakland’s budget crisis seems to have lit a fuse under Mayor Ron Dellums, who has been present and engaged in intense negotiations in recent weeks,” he begins his column, adding that the mayor’s Tuesday evening budget speech to Oakland City Council, in which Mr. Dellums outlined detailed plans to bring the city out of its immediate and long-term financial difficulties, “was the most coherent, logical and on-point address [Mr. Dellums] has delivered since taking office nearly two years ago.” 

Actually, Mr. Dellums’ City Council presentation was not even the most comprehensive speech the mayor gave during September. It was, in fact, an abbreviated version of the speech the mayor gave the previous Friday at a City Hall press conference, in which he spoke for 35 minutes without notes or consulting with nearby aides. But Mr. Johnson didn’t make the Friday afternoon press conference—to my knowledge, the columnist doesn’t generally do press conferences—so he can be forgiven for not taking that into account. 

But back to Mr. Johnson’s Oct. 3 conversion. In that column, he writes that Mr. Dellums now “deserves some credit for rising to the challenge in the city’s fiscal crisis. In his speech to the council Tuesday, [the mayor] spoke clearly and with the authority of someone who intimately understood the details--and nuances--of the city’s budget dilemma. It was refreshing to hear him use concrete examples and solutions rather than abstractions and idealistic visions supported only by rhetoric.” 

So why has Mr. Johnson abruptly changed his opinion of the mayor? Well, it’s actually not the mayor whom Mr. Johnson is praising, as we see if we continue reading the Oct. 3 column. 

Mr. Johnson goes on to say that Mr. Dellums’ City Hall budget presentation told Mr. Johnson “two things”: “If Dellums is provided with adequate administrative support, he can deliver a factual, no-frills message to residents about the city’s most important issues. In addition, [newly hired mayoral consultant and former City Administrator Robert] Bobb and his consulting staff shaped the presentation and I have high hopes that Dellums has finally found someone whose advice he respects and is willing to consider.” 

In other words, Mr. Johnson feels that Mr. Dellums did good only because Mr. Bobb was there to prop him up. 

If you have any doubts that this is Mr. Johnson’s position, or what it is he is seeking, the columnist makes it plainer this week. In an October 7th column, he writes that “the completion of Dellums’ budget proposal last month is mostly the work of former City Manager Robert Bobb, who has served Dellums as an organizational consultant since August. Bobb and his team of professional consultants sorted out the city’s financial mess and authored the city’s recovery plan.” Mr. Johnson concludes, in case you missed the point, that “Bobb is the only proven manager Oakland has right now.” 

There are two problems with the Robert-Bobb-as-savior-of-Oakland-and-Mayor-Dellums’-ass scenario painted by Mr. Johnson. 

The first is that it implies that Mr. Dellums was incoherent and not grasping the intricacies of Oakland’s government infrastructure until the arrival of Mr. Bobb. But to attribute Mr. Dellums’ sudden coherence and clarity on Oakland’s budget to the arrival of Mr. Bobb, you have to discount the mayor’s State of the City address 10 months ago—long before Mr. Bobb came back—in which he spoke for more than an hour, also without notes, with similar clarity and organization on details of the city’s conditions and problems and his administration’s proposals to address them. Whether one agrees or disagrees with those proposals, the mayor’s State of the City address demonstrated a knowledge by the mayor of the intricacies of Oakland government that couldn’t be gained from someone slacking off four hours a day, or trying to cram all of that information in at the last minute. 

The second problem with Mr. Johnson’s no-savior-but-Robert scenario is that it ignores one of the more remarkable little municipal miracles we are currently in the midst of. At that same January State of the City address, Mr. Dellums pledged to bring Oakland’s uniformed police staff up to its full strength of 803 officers. At the time the mayor made the pledge, many observers—myself included—thought it was impossible to achieve. In fact, since Measure Y was passed in 2004, City Council and the Oakland Police Department administration had been trying to bring the department up to full strength, and couldn’t figure out a way to do it. The city is now projecting that it will meet the mayor’s goal of 803 by next month. That happened under Mr. Dellums, and the now-much-maligned former City Administrator Deborah Edgerly. This doesn’t mean that Mr. Bobb wouldn’t be a good hire for Oakland Administrator. It only means that the Dellums Administration wasn’t living in dumbness and darkness—as Mr. Johnson implies—before the mayor called upon Mr. Bobb to return and provide a little help. 

If you ever wonder why I don’t sing in the chorus of Mr. Dellums’ critics, these are some of the reasons. I’ll sing my own song, with my own criticisms. Theirs has too many strange notes. 

Berkeley schools are at a crossroads. BUSD has made strides in improving achievement at our elementary schools, but too many Berkeley middle school students arrive at high school two or more grade levels behind. They are unprepared for a rigorous high school curriculum. 

A recent report entitled “Diploma to Nowhere” sponsored by Strong American Schools (www.Edin08.com) reported that a third of today's college students have to enroll in remedial classes because they are not adequately prepared by their high school education to successfully complete college level work. More than 60 percent of freshmen admitted to the California State University schools need remediation in English, math or both. Today only 52 percent of Berkeley High School students are proficient in English language arts as measured by California state standards. This is a decline from 58 percent proficient in 2002. Even greater declines in proficiency have occurred in math and science. As a school district, our goal must be for all students to graduate from high school proficient or above in both English and math, ready to meet the challenges of post-secondary education and careers. There is no silver bullet to improving student achievement. However, Berkeley can do a better job of educating students and managing resources; I can help make it happen. 

I am the only candidate for Berkeley School Board Director that brings extensive experience as a chief financial officer in the Bay Area bioscience industry and CPA, as well as volunteer experience in the classroom, in school and non-profit governance, and in district oversight. This skill set will bring a fresh perspective and real oversight to the Berkeley School Board. 

Improved budgeting, planning, fiscal transparency and oversight 

As a chief financial officer, I balanced budgets under conditions of economic uncertainty. As an auditor, I worked on the audit of federal block grants to the City of Boston. My work has taught me in a visceral way that using money wisely and developing efficient systems allows more resources to be targeted to school district priorities. Even though the current state budget crisis has been temporarily resolved, the BUSD budget, like all school districts in California, will continue to be squeezed. 

I will insist on fiscal oversight of Berkeley taxpayers' bond money and better facilities planning, including the addition of needed classrooms at the high school level. My older child started Berkeley High in 2000 shortly after the B Building burned to the ground-a loss of 17 classrooms and additional office and administrative spaces. When the $116 million BUSD school construction bond Measure AA was passed in November 2000, voters were promised that the lost classrooms would be replaced. Eight years later Berkeley High is still missing those much-needed classrooms, and the bond monies have been spent. No audit of Measure AA has ever been performed. As School Board Director, I will push for systems to ensure fiscal transparency and accountability in the oversight of taxpayer money.  

Sustained, thoughtful attention to raising student achievement 

I will refocus the District on retaining qualified teachers and improving instruction and curriculum, keys to improving student achievement. I will fight for more instructional resources to be allocated to programs that have demonstrated results in improving student achievement in English, math, and science in K to 12 classrooms.  

For the past eight years as founding member and volunteer for WriterCoach Connection, I have worked with Berkeley secondary students on improving their writing skills. Excellent work is going on in the classroom, but many successful ideas are not shared or sustained. Coordination and articulation of curriculum between school sites, grade levels, and between the regular school year and summer school, should be institutionalized. Struggling students should be matched with timely and effective interventions starting in kindergarten. The achievement gap must be addressed from pre-school through high school graduation. All students must become proficient or above in literacy and math skills in order to successfully participate in the global economy.  

An inherent part of this work will include reaching out to other California school districts, educational foundations and organizations so we can all learn which programs help our students and which ones waste our dollars. We can't be afraid to evaluate programs that perhaps promised much hope and were eagerly embraced by many, if the long-term results do not show anticipated improvements in student achievement.  

As a school district we need to critically assess our programs on an ongoing basis. For example, the idea of restructuring or redesigning comprehensive high schools into smaller schools had the support of the Gates Foundation, which funded the small school reform initiative at Berkeley High. However, an independent evaluation of the Gates Foundation's High School Grants Initiative (www.gatesfoundation.org) concluded that hoped-for gains in student achievement did not materialize. Program decisions should be based on analysis of data, not anecdotal evidence.  

Demonstrated experience and commitment 

My years in the classroom, my experience with school governance, and my professional experience in finance will provide additional strength to the BUSD board and needed oversight to the District. I am a 24-year resident of Berkeley and the parent of two Berkeley High graduates. I have a BA from UC Berkeley in Religious Studies and an MBA from Columbia University. I have been involved in BUSD as a member of the Berkeley High School Governance Council and the Citizens' Budget Oversight Committee. I was a founding board member of Community Alliance for Learning, sponsor of the WriterCoach Connection program. As a board leader for Building Opportunities for Self-Sufficiency, I became familiar with issues of equity and homelessness in Alameda County and the effect on families and education. Let's make sure that school resources deliver the greatest educational benefit for all our students. They deserve it.  

I have been endorsed by school board members, Berkeley City Council members, social service and education leaders, and many community members concerned about education and the Berkeley public schools. Please visit www.myrick4berkeleyschools.com.

I am running for re-election to the Berkeley School Board because I have the energy, enthusiasm, experience, and knowledge to continue the impressive improvements that the Berkeley Unified School District has achieved since I was first elected to the Board in 2000. I have strong educational, fiscal, and operational experience, and I bring the additional perspective as an environmentalist and community liaison to the School Board. 

In the first few months of my first term on the Board, the District uncovered a $6 million deficit. With my leadership, with a Superintendent who recognized and immediately responded, and with a Board who laid out a three-year recovery plan, and most importantly stuck to its goals, Berkeley Unified worked its way out of fiscal crises. We are now financially solvent, with a fully restored reserve. Further, we have installed payroll and position controls, systems that had been lacking or lax when I first joined the Board. These fiscal systems allow the District to constantly monitor revenues and expenditures, and link them to specific positions within our organization. 

Over the past several years I have helped steer the District to improved state (API) test scores, have served as Board liaison to the Planning and Oversight Committee, our music and arts committees, the District Audit Committee, the Board Policy Sub-committee, the recently formed LGBTQ Task Force, and Safe Routes to Schools Committees (which I co-founded in 2003). I have been a consistent advocate for our music and art programs, and the Board liaison for these District committees. Additionally, I have served as the Board liaison to the successful Adult School move to its San Pablo site, participated on the successful International Baccalaureate High School team, worked with our District team and interviewed to secure our Noyce Math grant for our middle schools, supported our WritersCoach Connection program in our secondary schools, and advocated for a consistent, sequential writing program in our elementary and middle schools. I have always put campus and community safety at the top of my priority list: earthquake and disaster preparedness has no stronger advocate on the Board.  

As Board President in 2008, I worked with Vice-President Nancy Riddle in the 2 X 2 Committee (President and Vice-President of the School Board and the Mayor and one City Councilmember) to create and finally establish a comprehensive response to the achievement gap, which we have termed the 2020 Initiative. This is for the first time in my memory a systematic, comprehensive approach and response to the achievement gap, with health, mental health, nutrition, early intervention, and assessment systems in place to finally address this issue. The School Board and the District is committed to implementing programs and policies that will begin to close the achievement gap in Berkeley Unified School District.  

I have worked with KyoytoUSA/Helios Project to entirely solarize Washington Elementary School, the largest single solar project in the city of Berkeley. My goal is to solarize half of our Berkeley public schools in the next five years. I need your help and support to do this, there are Boardmembers still reluctant to commit to this alternative-energy plan.  

We are fortunate to have good schools in Berkeley, but that has not happened by accident. We have a community who has consistently supported our schools, both financially and in volunteer time. We have teachers, staff, and administrators who are dedicated and committed to serving our students. We also have a hard-working and dedicated Board that has shown consistent and strong financial oversight, budget and fiscal accountability and transparency, and schools creating a comprehensive, whole-child approach to student success and achievement. We have implemented the Universal Learning Support Services initiative (ULSS), which is a “whole cloth” approach to early identification of student needs as well as early intervention strategies. This model incorporates health, mental-health, food and nutrition, positive behavioral programs, conflict resolution, and other programs to help our kids succeed. It is the most comprehensive model that I have seen since I've been involved in the District; all the research indicates this is the type of approach that is necessary for success.  

We have also made impressive gains on our API (Annual Performance Index), with seven of our eleven elementary schools scoring above the coveted 800 mark, and two just barely below it. All of our schools have made gains when tracked over a period of six years.  

We successfully defended our student assignment policy (integration plan) in California Superior Court. I was part of the Board that chose our current and previous Superintendents, both extraordinary executives. We are the first District in the state to completely seismically retrofit our K-12 facilities, and we are working on retrofitting all of our facilities. By any index, by any standard, we are a better, stronger district today than in 2000, and in 2004. That is how I want to be judged as a Boardmember. 

None of this work is complete. Our work in public education is always a work-in-progress. As we move forward with our educational goals and mission, it is imperative to advocate for not the maintenance public education funding from the state, but additional state commitments to our public schools.  

I have been endorsed by the Sierra Club, the only Berkeley school board candidate EVER endorsed by this organization, in recognition of my environmental leadership on the Board. The Berkeley Fire Fighters (Local 1227) has endorsed me, recognizing my commitment to safe campuses and to disaster and emergency preparedness. I have also been endorsed by County Superintendent of Schools Sheila Jordan, School Board Vice-President Nancy Riddle, School Boardmembers Joaquin Rivera and Shirley Issel, Peralta Board Vice-President Nicky Gonzalez Yuen, Alameda County Board of Education President Jackie Fox Ruby, Berkeley City Councilmembers Max Anderson, Laurie Capitelli, and Kriss Worthington, BSEP Planning and Oversight Co-Chair Julie Holcomb, Judy Appel, Nancy Carleton, Tom and Jane Kelly, Juliet Lamont, Michael Parenti, Anne Wagley, and many others.

The first question that people usually ask me is after being Mayor (1994-2002) why would you want to do that again? Since leaving the Mayor’s Office I have talked with people across political lines all over this City. I find that Berkeley is a divided community; that people believe no one in City Hall is listening. That’s why I am running for Mayor. 

I would like to tell you about four things that I am especially proud of having accomplished when I was Mayor. First, there was a desperate need to bring people and vitality into our dying Downtown. I did that when I implemented the Arts and Theater District—the most successful Downtown program ever. Today, we need to build on that success. 

Second, people needed safe access from the City to our wonderful new waterfront park. You couldn’t get from here to there without danger of being killed. So I pieced together the funding and we built the I-80 Bicycle/Pedestrian Overpass. Today, we need to ensure that everyone in Berkeley has access to open space and parks that are so important in our hectic lives. 

Third, the lives of people, including a Berkeley child, were being cut short by guns. I worked hard to get Saturday Night Specials and Assault Rifles off our streets. I was only partly successful. Today, efforts to get guns off our streets need to be re-doubled. 

Fourth, I went to South Berkeley and worked long hours with people on problems they wanted solved in their neighborhoods. Today, you can see the decent housing that before were abandoned, falling down, blighted buildings and we worked successfully to close down public nuisances. Today, we need to do more because everyone deserves to live in a safe and pleasant neighborhood. 

I want to change the problems that I am seeing in Berkeley today. That’s why I am running for Mayor! 

Here are some things I will do as your next Mayor; In the Downtown I would build on the success of the Arts and Theater District by establishing a colorful, vibrant Arts and Crafts Street Market. I support the hotel/convention center in our General Plan. You can’t even buy a dish towel in our Downtown, so I would aggressively seek new retail. I’ve done it before, I’ll do it again. You can’t just leave it to staff, the Mayor, herself, must be involved. We need to improve Downtown parking for our merchants, balanced with the need to relieve congestion. I would build a garage near the freeway and run a free shuttle connecting our neighborhood commercial areas, Downtown, our three BART Stations and UC Berkeley. I would reject the Mayor’s proposal to extend parking meter times to 10:00 p.m.  

Berkeley should be the greenest City anywhere. We can start by requiring solar or solar hot water on new construction, and putting solar and/or other energy improvements on our City facilities—something no one has talked about. We need to save the irreplaceable watershed and woodlands of Strawberry Canyon from the massive development planned there, and stop dumping polluted storm water into Aquatic Park Lagoon, address the West Berkeley flood problem in a separate plan, and consider innovative ways to prevent flooding like those used in Portland. All residents can “live green” everyday and everywhere in Berkeley through programs that encourage pesticide free backyards and the Slow Food Movement.  

We can vote No on the Mayor’s sponsored Measure LL on the November ballot which makes it easier to demolish our older buildings. 48% of greenhouse gas emissions (more than from cars) come from the demolition, construction and operation of buildings which replace older ones. The greenest building is the building that is re-used.  

We must protect our neighborhoods, not only by re-using/re-cycling the very buildings that provide the unique charm of Berkeley, but by creating development standards that require new construction to respect its surroundings. Berkeley needs to grow, needs to provide for new affordable housing. It should do so by requiring these new buildings along our transit corridors and in other places to respect the light, air, space, size and appearance of its surrounding buildings. We are one community. We need to build as neighbors with quality design and livability for everyone. 

We need safe streets and neighborhoods. You know there is a crime problem when an innocent person is shot taking out the trash. We have high rates of shootings, assaults and property crimes throughout Berkeley. We need to improve Community Involved Policing and strengthen police resources, not just move police from one area to another. 

We need to work with our schools to close the achievement gap by restoring my Pre-Natal to Pre-School Program which focuses public resources where they are most effective, stopping the achievement gap before it ever begins—before the child enters kindergarten. Every dollar spent on prevention saves multiple dollars later on. 

We need to establish firm, fair and friendly relations with the University. The agreement signed in secret by the Mayor that costs Berkeley taxpayers $14 million needs to be re-negotiated. Simply put, the University should pay fairly for the costs of City services provided to the campus. I would seek a City/University “good neighbor” accord to improve the quality of life for students and neighbors in the areas surrounding the campus. Most importantly, I will work for long term solutions to University/City land use conflicts at the state and local level.  

I pledge to respect every member of the Council and enact a strong Sunshine Ordinance guaranteeing citizen participation and government transparency.  

We need an accessible Mayor. My phone number will continue to be in the phone book.  

We need a Mayor who will meet with and listen to people on a regular basis who will put the needs of Berkeley people first. I have shown I will do that. 

For more information, and to join the campaign go to www.shirleydeanformayor.org, To speak directly to Shirley call 800-551-2616, and don’t forget, vote Shirley Dean on November 4th!

My name is Toya Groves and I represent the population of Berkeley often criticized for their lack of political involvement. I represent whole heartedly the youth who come from these communities and their victimization by policies like No Child Left Behind. I represent the youth who has been suspended or expelled from this district as early as middle school, and who are forgotten about or shifted out of the district without proper representation, to maintain statistical mandates. Suspension and expulsion and large time spans of no education does not just mean the lack of higher education , or the lack of a job, it could very well mean destructive behavior and violent deaths. As adults we must take responsibility for all our children and deal with the threat of violence in our schools and community in a holistic way. This is a mental health issue similar to teenage suicide. Our suspension and expulsion policies must be re-evaluated because those kids we kick out of school do not just disappear they end up dead or incarcerated!  

With the onset of huge budget cuts passed down from our state government, clever and insightful financial policies should be implemented to off set the impacts of such cuts. Collaborations with community based organizations and local colleges are now essential to maintaining our high standard of education.  

BUSD staff all though diverse in many ways does not demographically represent its student population. I think this is a direct reflection of low proficiency in our Black and Latino Students. When analyzing test scores, drop out rates, and suspension data, the majority of students with low test scores, high drop out rates, and high suspension and expulsion hearings, are either African American or Latino. We need to find our way around policies that are not maintaining the mission of our schools. It is time to reconnect with the past that invigorated us to be the first school to address steps to truly diverse schools. Community and schools must work together with the intention to motivate and embrace ALL students. I support initiatives, like the 20/20 Vision recently created to tackle the achievement gap; however I want to make sure the missions of these programs are successful. This achievement gap is a threat to my own children, who according to statistics could fall victim to, because they come from an economically disadvantaged family, are African American, and come from a single parent home.  

I recently became involved in land use policies when the Ashby Flea market was almost sacrificed for Commercial Development. This battle wedged between groups that usually advocated together. I was elected co-chair of the Ashby Bart Task force as a secret advocate for the flea market. I sat amidst architects and land developers and learned I was alone on this board because most members were hand selected by a land developer SBNDC. I watched as cultural value, historical landmark, and environmental impact policies, were pushed aside in the name of so called affordable housing. I argued that the flea market was one of the last accurate representations of Historic Berkeley. During this experience I became familiar with CEQA and rallied to use historical landmark preservation and the cultural impact policy of CEQA to defend the flea market as a valuable “open space” necessary for the healthy environment of the community. I also used CEQA to defend Kandy’s Car Wash. I founded the Four Corners Association to stop and encourage BioFuel Oasis to find a different location to rebuild their new station. Unfortunately the pursuit of green economic viability outweighed human value, historical significance, and the South Berkeley Area Plan, and Kandy’ s Car wash, which was a staple of the South Berkeley Community, shut down. This displaced “unemployable” employees and left them with no alternative source of work. It discouraged South Berkeley Youth who often worked at the Car Wash to earn petty cash. As Kai Crowder, a BYA youth and B-Tech student said “With out Kandy’s, South Berkeley would not be South Berkeley.”  

Teaching in Oakland enabled me to figure out clever ways of inspiring youth to learn. Tragically many of our brightest children are masked behind low self esteem, socio-economic barriers, and emotional trauma. We must be qualified to effectively deal with these issues if we wish to close the achievement gap of our youth. The youth of today are confronted with unique and devastating circumstances. When “No Child Left Behind” was implemented and the demand for credentialed teachers was put in place, many effective and great teachers who where not credentialed, were forced to find other careers. This made room for teachers who lacked the cultural competency to deal with the youth on the low end of the achievement gap. We must have a faculty that reflects the students, demographically, culturally, and economically. There is no way to effectively teach African American and Latino Students without African American and Latino Teachers.  

I have chosen to run for BUSD School Board, because I care about educating all students. In a city representing equality and diversity, it is absurd that there are huge populations of youth who are not adequately educated, and therefore not prepared for the world that awaits them. I will bring new and fresh ideas that will positively affect policy. I am different from other candidates, because I represent a population that is most commonly isolated from school reform initiatives and city politics. I am a single mother of three children in three different schools in Berkeley. I recognize the plights of parent and teacher. I am on two PTA’s and a recent member of the School Governance Council at both Willard and Emerson School. I am directly affected by school assignment policies and education disparities imposed by socio-economic disadvantages, gentrification, and disenfranchised communities. I am personally and passionately concerned about the obtainment of proper education for all students and will use my experience to bring new ideas to the forefront of Berkeley’s Education Program.

My great love for politics, which is based in love, has more to do with being in touch with people. Rather than go on and on here (I will see you as I make my rounds), I have instead taken this opportunity to present to you some information about myself.  

Being elected to the City Council of Berkeley would be a dream come true. If elected, in the end, I can guarantee you that the District, and hence the city, will be a demonstrably different place, and this for the better. I look forward to being your next representatives. Thank you. 

Biographical summary 

I offer unique attributes and experiences that I will bring to the Berkeley City Council. This includes coming from rural Yazoo City, Mississippi and earning degrees at UCSC and Tufts University, and beginning a Ph.D. program at Stanford. Right now, public service is more important than more education for this phase of my life. 

As a child in the 1960’s Deep South, I had no contact with white people until I entered the newly-integrated public school system. As a child, I knew there was something dreadfully wrong with the reality of our lives, with the racial climate of the time and place. Like the mythological King in Oedipus Rex, I knew that there was injustice awaiting me, and that it had the capacity to destroy my hopes and dreams, if I allowed it. 

As I got older, I realized I would have to leave Mississippi to create opportunities to realize my potential. While traveling throughout the country as a younger man, I began to dream of California. I felt a particular pull to Berkeley because of its liberal reputation and the lasting impact of the Free Speech Movement. 

Ultimately, I found myself at UC-Santa Cruz where I received a B.A. in 1986 in Theatre Arts. I then received an M.A. in History from Tufts University, and was accepted into a doctoral program at Stanford. 

I’ve learned and grown from some tough experiences 

Need for big changes in Berkeley  

politics  

Berkeley has a global reputation for being the most progressive City in the world. I'm deeply proud to call it my home, as I am proud of the great history of innovation this city has given to the world. Sadly, the current crop of leadership does not reflect well on this great history. They trade on Berkeley’s progressive reputation, while doing nothing to contribute to it. This is what motivates me to run for city council. Since becoming involved in Berkeley politics in 1993, I have observed brazen corruption including nepotism and favoritism. My elected representatives have been huge disappointments, most notably my opponent. 

I’ve found them to be unresponsive to phone calls and e-mails, and full of haughty condescension when I speak with them. District 2 deserves better representation, and that’s what I’m offering. They talk big about green issues, but their actions reveal a different agenda. 

Like many Berkeley citizens, I mourn the loss of Dona Spring as a wonderful woman and Councilmember. She was one of the few members with integrity and whom I found to be responsive. And I recognize other council members I can work with to make improvements. Despite its rich history, Berkeley is beset by serious urban problems. This includes homelessness, drug trafficking, and corrupted elements within City government. 

I do not intend to become a career politician like my opponent. Rather, I intend to accomplish as much as I can in a one four-year term, and then evaluate whether I should remain on council. Hopefully, I can accomplish my goals within four years and go on to another phase in my life. Another driving motivation is to give our children all the opportunities and advantages to which they are entitled. This means riding the neighborhood of gang and drug activity. A parallel goal is improving the education and day care opportunities for our youngest citizens. 

We need your help 

I need your help in order to be your councilman. I ask you to consider making a financial20donation to my campaign so I can be more effective in getting my message to more people. So any financial contributions will be gratefully appreciated. If you can’t give money, I’ll ask you to help by volunteering a few hours of your time to help get the word out, or consider some form of in-kind contribution. 

Please send your check or money order to Committee To Elect Jon Crowder to City Council, 2930 Shattuck Ave. Suite, #200-14, Berkeley, CA 94705. (510) 666-8810. E-mail: surveygroup@aol.com.

It was almost six years ago that we embarked on a journey to set aside the old political divisions and work together to take on the tough challenges that face Berkeley in the 21st century.  

I am proud of the progress we have made and of the inclusive way we have governed. But there is much to finish and much more we can do—and that’s why I have decided to seek re-election as Mayor of Berkeley in November.  

I have had the immense privilege of working with hundreds of people over the past six years as we made progress on issues from fixing streetlights to fighting global warming. While you might not see the work that went into balancing six straight City budgets and increasing the City’s bond rating to one of the highest in the nation, there is also progress right in front of our eyes. Let’s take a short tour of some highlights: 

• Our downtown is becoming a vital center of commerce, housing, and art. I was proud to help the Freight and Salvage secure a $1.2 million state grant to make their new downtown home on Addison Street possible. Just a couple blocks away is the almost completed David Brower Center and Oxford Plaza apartments—a platinum green office building next to affordable housing. I helped lead a broad community effort to secure millions in state and federal funding for what will be a world center for environmental organizations and advocacy. 

• If you want to see more “green,” visit our first electric car dealership on San Pablo Avenue. My staff and I worked with our economic development team to help the owners find the space, get a lease, and figure out our permit process.  

• Just down the street is the new hypertension clinic at Lifelong Medical on Alcatraz where you can get a free blood pressure screening and referrals for help. I worked with Lifelong and our public health department to fund this critical service. 

• Stop by any one of the eight Project BUILD sites. For the 5th year, nearly 1,000 kids are receiving free books, tutoring from UC students, and healthy diet and exercise programs. My office joined with UC Berkeley, our summer program providers, and the business community to put together this wonderful program.  

• Built over the Ashby BART station, the Ed Roberts Campus will be a center for disability services and national disability advocacy. Congresswoman Barbara Lee and I led an effort to secure over $20 million in state and federal funds to build the new facility. 

• At the foot of Gilman Street, is the just-opened Regional Sports Fields Complex. I created and led the five-city partnership that built the program and worked closely with other cities and parks officials to secure the $7 million in state funding for the project.  

We have done some extraordinary work together and I look forward to joining with you to finish what we have started:  

City leadership on energy and climate change 

Just a couple of weeks ago, the City Council received the draft of our far-reaching climate action plan. Over a thousand Berkeley residents have participated in the drafting and review of this plan so far and I look forward to working together as we finalize the plan and put it into action. First on our list is the October launch of our new solar financing program which will allow residents to install solar and pay for it over 20 years on their property tax bills. 

Closing the achievement gap 

I am also working closely with the school board and community to begin a major and renewed effort to eliminate the achievement gap and ensure that all of our kids graduate from high school ready for college and/or careers. We want all of our efforts—city, school, community, church—to be coordinated and effective so we can reach those kids that need help and support those already doing well. 

Revitalizing our downtown 

Over the past two years, a group of 22 Berkeley residents from all corners of the city came together to work on plan for the future of our downtown. The result of their work is a remarkable community-consensus about how we preserve our history, provide housing, protect our environment, and build our economy. We will be working to make that vision a reality with a new hotel, the Berkeley Art Museum, public plaza, and much more.  

Public safety and human services 

We are just getting started on implementing my Public Commons for Everyone Initiative. After years of a piecemeal and less than effective approaches, we have put in place a multi-faceted new program to provide services to people in need and enforce clear rules for street behavior. We will have guides on the street to help people and looking out for trouble. We prohibited smoking in all commercial areas. We are creating more housing and have opened a new detox facility. We are improving street and sidewalk cleaning. And we created uniform, citywide rules about what is acceptable in our public areas and what is not.  

I am proud to have the support of hundreds of Berkeley residents as well as Congresswoman Barbara Lee, the Sierra Club, a majority of both the Berkeley City Council and the Berkeley School Board, the California Nurses Association, the Alameda County Democratic Party, Alameda County Central Labor Council, the Berkeley Federation of Teachers, Berkeley Fire Fighters, Berkeley Police Association, East Bay Young Democrats, Cal Democrats, and the John George Democratic Club. I would be honored to have your support as well. Please call or e-mail me with any questions, thoughts or ideas at (510) 644-2008 or tom@tombates.org.  

It has been an honor and a privilege to serve the Southwest Berkeley community for the last four years on the Berkeley City Council. I have been accessible and active in District 2, working to improve residents’ quality of life.  

Southwest Berkeleyans deserve to live in a community in which they feel safe. Over the last four years, I have been actively working with neighborhood groups to organize around both crime and disaster preparedness. While cohesive communities are the first and best step to prepare for both of these, neighbors cannot do it by themselves. This is why I fought hard for Southwest Berkeley to receive more attention when the City was concentrating police resources to other parts of the city and have been pushing hard for more disaster preparedness resources to be allocated to the flatlands. I have also improved the safety of our streets by implementing sensible traffic strategies.  

I have worked to reduce the disparities that are prevalent in Southwest Berkeley. Disparities in health, housing accessibility, and education are at the root of many of the social issues that we are currently experiencing. To help address the health disparities in our community, I worked hard to secure the Berkeley Bowl, a neighborhood-serving grocery store that will offer healthy food. I have helped to address housing inequities and access to affordable housing by supporting the affordable housing developments along transit corridors. I have also worked to develop 2020 Vision, a comprehensive plan to eliminate the academic achievement gap in our schools by the year 2020. Each year, I renew my commitment to academic success by welcoming incoming Rosa Parks Elementary students with backpacks and school supplies, so that they are ready to learn.  

I am proud of the work I have done to restore our community’s infrastructure by efficiently managing the use of the City’s resources; I lobbied my Council colleagues to keep sewer rates from increasing over the last four years, locating existing funds and allocating them for emergency storm drain work to prevent flooding of businesses and homes in West Berkeley. To address long-term flooding concerns in West Berkeley, I not only am working to increase the capacity of our storm water system, but am also working to reduce watershed runoff by implementing innovative green infrastructure into our public right-of-ways.  

During these difficult economic times, I understand the importance of supporting small local businesses. This is why I helped secure funds to host the popular International Food Festival, celebrating the diversity of West Berkeley while promoting small local businesses. I have also worked to attract green businesses to Berkeley, which will help to establish the East Bay Green Corridor and provide good paying jobs for people of all education levels. However bringing green businesses to our community is not enough, we must equip our residents with the proper skills to stay competitive in the job market. To prepare our Berkeley residents for the new Green economy, I will work to create sufficient job training opportunities, while already having expanded youth employment and opportunities in the City.  

Besides maintaining and improving these fundamental aspects of residents’ quality of life, safety, equality, infrastructure and the economy, I have also worked hard to make life in Southwest Berkeley more pleasant. I have helped develop a comprehensive alcohol policy to not only protect neighbors from drunk drivers, but also to reduce the impacts on the community in areas that have high concentrations of alcohol outlets. To ensure that District 2 residents have access to quality open space, I secured $1.2 million in improvements to San Pablo Park. In order to keep Southwest Berkeley an attractive place to live and work, I helped usher forward public art projects including, the AmTrak railstop and Transit Plaza Upgrades, decorative gates on the Corporation Yard, and the mural at Frances Albrier Center. I have also found a tool that will help continue to improve the quality of life for Southwest Berkeley residents, the West Berkeley Improvement District. This district will general $600,000 to tackle some of the most difficult social challenges in Southwest Berkeley including crime, graffiti, illegal dumping, chronic homelessness, and traffic congestion. 

I am proud of the considerable progress I have made by working together to make our neighborhoods safer, reduce our community’s health and housing disparities, improve our City’s infrastructure, and develop our workforce and economy. There is still much to be done. I ask for your support so that I can continue my work on these important issues. By building upon the work that I have done during my first term, together we can build a healthier Southwest Berkeley community. Beyond District 2, please join me in supporting Barack Obama, voting Yes on Measures FF (Library Bond) and GG (Public Safety Measure), and No on Propositions 4 (Protect Teen Safety) and 8 (Don’t Eliminate Marriage for Anyone), to ensure the quality of life for everyone. For more information, please visit my website at www.moorefordistrict2.com. 

No, this is not turning into the Magpie Column. But I just got wind of disturbing news about these birds that needs to reach a wider audience. The July issue of The Auk, published by the American Ornithologists’ Union, has an article entitled “Early Impact of West Nile Virus on the Yellow-billed Magpie (Pica nuttalli.)”  

I’ve spoken in the past to the lead author, Scott Crosbie of the Veterinary Genetics Laboratory at UC Davis, and several of his co-authors: Walter Koenig at UC’s Hastings Reservation, contracting biologist Ginger Bolen, East Bay Regional Parks District wildlife manager Doug Bell. These folks are not alarmists, and I’m inclined to take their findings seriously. Based on multiple indicators, they report steep declines in yellow-billed magpie populations since the advent of the disease.  

The magpie is a true California endemic, one of two bird species that occur only within the state; the other is the island scrub-jay of Santa Cruz Island.  

Its range is limited to the Central Valley and the Coast Ranges south of San Francisco Bay; there’s no overlap with the closely related black-billed magpie of the Great Basin. Since acorns are a major part of the yellow-bill’s diet, it’s usually found in association with oaks.  

The pre-West Nile population was estimated at 50,000 to 180,000 individuals; National Audubon and Partners in Flight go with the high end. 

Since corvids—members of the crow family, including magpies and jays—were known to be more susceptible to West Nile than other birds, there was early concern that California’s unique magpie might be at risk. The first infected magpie was detected in 2004, in Sacramento County.  

The year before that, 223 magpie carcasses had been reported to the state’s Dead Bird Surveillance Program. In 2004, that number increased to 2667; in 2005, to 8571. For both years, over 80 percent tested positive for the virus-the highest rate for any bird species with a meaningful sample size. (For comparison, 70 percent of western scrub-jay carcasses and 56 percent of American crow carcasses tested positive.) 

Breeding Bird Surveys and Audubon Christmas Bird Counts are widely used indicators of bird populations. The spring surveys involve point counts along fixed routes; for Christmas Counts, observers collect data on all the species they can see or hear within a defined count circle. Crosbie and his co-authors report a 22 percent decline in yellow-billed magpies on Breeding Bird Surveys from 2004 to 2005, and a 42 percent drop in Christmas Count numbers through 2006.  

Observations at three traditional communal magpie roosts in Sacramento County mirrored those trends. One roost with a peak occupancy of 913 birds in November 2003 had been completely abandoned by March 2006, as had a smaller roost. The third showed a precipitous decline. Magpies are set in their ways and may use the same roost sites for decades. There’s no indication that the missing birds went somewhere else. 

Another line of evidence suggests that West Nile is fatal to most magpies that contract it. Only one of 21 magpies trapped for blood samples in Davis had West Nile-specific antibodies, a sign that it had survived a bout of the disease. (In contrast, 25 percent of 48 scrub-jays had the antibodies.) 

So: fewer breeding birds, lower winter numbers, lots of carcasses, empty roosts. Crosbie and his co-authors extrapolate a possible 49 percent decline from carcass retrievals alone. They suggest several reasons why magpies would be harder hit than other birds: their habitat overlaps with the mosquitoes that spread the disease, the magpies gather in large night roosts and are highly social during the day, and they eat carrion, a reported transmission route for West Nile. If the birds don’t develop resistance to the disease, they could be headed for range contraction, a genetic bottleneck, and what population biologists call an “extinction vortex.” 

What difference would that make? No species exists in isolation. It’s all hitched together, as Muir said. One study suggests that Bullock’s orioles nest near yellow-billed magpies for protection from predators. Magpies cache acorns; those they don’t retrieve are well situated to become the next generation of native oaks. Oak woodland and savanna ecosystems are in enough trouble already without losing an important propagator.  

At a Magpie Working Group conference at UC Davis in 2005, scientists and wildlife managers acknowledged that the magpie may be on the brink and recommended range-wide monitoring, protection of its habitat, and consideration of endangered species status and a captive breeding program.  

Sadly, it’s hard to imagine any of these being acted on in the present political and economic climate. The California Department of Fish and Game is already strapped, and it’s anyone’s guess what will be left of federal programs. Bad timing for the yellow-billed magpie, and for all of us who value intact ecosystems.  

A friend of mine has a bass guitarist living upstairs who has been working out the chords to “In a Gadda Da Vida” for the past 12 years. My friend is a patient person but she’s begun to exhibit something of a tic and often looks dolefully into space for long periods of time, returning from her reverie only when the music has stopped for some short spell. 

Recently she’s begun asking a lot of unwholesome questions about firearms and those CIA poisoning tricks they used to talk about in the sixties (probably while “In a Gadda Da Vida” was playing in the background).  

I have suggested that she might want to try some sound control techniques in the building before moving on to anything more rash. Noise conduction problems can be complex and modifications designed to reduce sound in buildings can be expensive, but if that cute little freckly kid from next door has grown into a 17- year-old drummer in a band called TRåMA, you might also benefit from some of these notions. So here goes. 

If your problem is noise transmitted between the upstairs neighbor’s floor and your ceiling, one of the best techniques is to replace the existing ceiling with new a layer of drywall (I’d use 5/8”), suspended by resilient channel (often called rezi channel). These are Z-shaped pieces of metal that come in 10-foot lengths that are screwed onto the bare rafters of a ceiling (or over an existing ceiling), then covered with a layer of drywall (aka sheetrock).  

To make these, a long strip of metal is taken and folded twice along its length, forming a strong bar that forms a tiny Z-shape when viewed from one end. 

The channels are installed perpendicular to the floor joists so that they run across the bottom edge of the joists from one wall to the other. The new drywall ceiling is then attached to the metal strips, not to the ceiling above. (The “Z” shape of the channel also gives the drywall a bit of bounce.) The result is that your ceiling will transmit far less of the sound emanating through the musician’s or tap dancer’s floor above. 

If you have plenty of ceiling height, it’s fine to leave the first layer of drywall, although testing by National Research Council Canada suggests that this is not a good technique. (Hmm. Is it fine, or not a good technique? If not good, might as well not mention?)  

If you like, you can enhance this methodology in several ways. You can insulate the space between the joists using common insulation. You can install Sound Board, a thick fibrous cellulose matting. You can also install this material across the bottom of the joists prior to installing the resilient channel but remember that you’ll need longer screws. It’s a good idea to use 5/8” drywall on the ceiling if you want to really kill those bad vibes. 

For the really serious isolationist, cement tile-backer can be used as a part of such an assembly, although this is probably more effective for high frequencies than for low ones. You’ll want to remember to bring the launch codes with you when you lock down for the night. 

Sound channel, insulation, or additional layers of drywall can also be used to subdue noise that emanates through walls, but the best method in my opinion involves building one of two types of party walls. My favorite involves actually rebuilding the wall between the two spaces. You build a wall with two sets of studs (upright 2x4’s) on a 2x6 bottom and top member. One set of 2x4’s is built to one edge of the 2x6 facing one room. The other set is built to the other edge facing the other room. The uprights alternate along the length of the 2x6 plates or sills, each one touching only one side of the wall. 

So when you hit the wall on one side (or strike a power chord), one set of 2x4’s will vibrate but not the opposing set of 2x4’s and drywall finish. Although this technique is quite helpful for loud noises and banging, it’s ideal demonstration is in virtually eliminating normal talking and the other sounds of life. 

I used this technique in a duplex in Richmond many years ago and when we were done, we could holler on one side and hear virtually nothing on the other. Great for privacy during marital disputes or intimate moments. 

The second type of party wall is simply a second wall built almost against the first with one or two layers of drywall between. This eats up another few inches of room space and seems less efficient than the staggered technique. Nonetheless, it is simple and can be added to an existing wall while the previous method requires building a new wall from scratch. 

For sounds next door (like TråMA’s weekly band practice), there’s nothing quite like double-glazed windows. It’s impressive how well these advents of modern building science inhibit sound. About 12 years ago, I was inspecting a small house built right beside the 580 freeway. It was up a small hill so that you looked right over onto the freeway and the hill acted like an amphitheater, capturing and funneling the sound right toward the house. Outside the house, the freeway noise drowned our best efforts at conversation, but when we walked into the house—recently fitted with these new-fangled windows—the sound was little more than a distant hum.  

This works equally well for neighbors who fight, dogs that bark all night or whatever drives you to and beyond distraction. If you work nights and sleep days, double-paned windows just might keep you sane. 

I should also mention that carpeting with thick padding is a great sound absorber and requires no significant alteration to the building. 

I’ll add one last measure for the band members. If you live at Mom’s or if the police have now been at your house more than four times, you might try the following technique. 

Drum kits can be placed on a floating floor or even in a hanging room-within-a-room.  

You can build a floor that sits above the primary floor in the room and either place it on rubber isolation bumpers or suspend it from the ceiling by use of cables or threaded rod. The secondary floor need be suspended only a fraction of an inch above the original floor to prevent transmission of the vibration from a drum kit. The hangers (rods or cables) can employ isolation devices like the one mentioned above to connect them to the ceiling.  

Bumpers can be found at industrial supply stores. I suggested these bumpers when my 0steopath and friend, Catherine, was being assaulted by the vibration from a restaurant ventilation system that ran upward through her offices. The intensely close attention required to study her patient’s sounds and movements were simply too hard to achieve with the entire building bombilating like a cicada. This simple and inexpensive method worked wonders by isolating the rooftop ventilator and eased tensions between the resonating parties. 

This was by no means a complete list of sound reduction techniques but, hopefully, one or more of these techniques will get you and your neighbors started on the road to concord.  

So, in closing, if the person you’re sharing the duplex with starts a Herman’s Hermits cover band, remember, don’t get mad; don’t get even; just get resilient. 

High on Panoramic Hill, overlooking Berkeley and the bay, stands a pre-World War II house that became both a public architectural spectacle and a secret aerie. Next week, a scholar offers an illustrated lecture exploring some of the hidden dimensions and character of this striking structure. 

The Weston Havens House, designed by Harwell Hamilton Harris and completed in 1941, has gained increasingly iconic status among fans of modern architecture since it passed into the ownership of the University of California following the death of its owner earlier this decade.  

Nearly invisible from the street on which it stands, seen from below it projects from the hillside with tall window walls facing the view and a dramatic “V” form to the roof. Intensely modern for its time, it was the purpose-built home of one of Berkeley’s more wealthy and enigmatic native sons.  

In recent years, occasional tours have offered the public brief peeks inside the house where the décor and furnishings seem frozen in time from two generations past.  

The talk on the Havens House, provocatively entitled “Sex and the Single Building” will be given the evening of Wednesday, Oct. 15, by Professor Annmarie Adams.  

Adams, a visiting scholar who taught an architecture seminar with the same title at Berkeley last spring, will analyze the social dimensions and origins of the Havens House, examining it not just as an early modern design but as a product of the desires of its life-long owner, as interpreted by the designer. 

“The premise,” Adams says, “is that a concentrated focus on the plan highlights the home’s role in shaping the lived experience of real people as the negotiated social positions inflected by—among other things—gender, race, class, ethnicity, and age.” 

Adams is the William C. Macdonald Professor of Architecture at Montreal’s McGill University, and earned her Ph.D. from Berkeley. Her research concentrates on domestic architecture, hospital architecture, and “gendered space”—that is, the way that the social and cultural roles of men and women influence the way buildings are designed and put to use. 

In spring 2008, she was the first scholar-in-residence at Berkeley for the Arcus Endowment, a gift-funded program in the College of Environmental Design which “seeks to foster an awareness of Lesbian/Gay/Bisexual/Transgender/Queer communities in the history of architecture, landscape architecture, urban planning, and the built environment disciplines.” 

The Weston Havens house proves a perfect analytical subject for the sort of scholarship that interests Adams. It was the home of a wealthy, well-traveled, lifelong bachelor, built specifically to his tastes, with features such as a secluded on-site badminton court, magnificent bay views that could be enjoyed in complete privacy, and a kitchen concealed behind a screen painted with a map of the world. 

This was clearly a home built entirely to the fixed tastes of a man who could afford to live as he wished, at least behind walls. 

There’s a dearth of detailed biographical information about Havens. Despite that fact that he grew up in Berkeley and had his home—or, at least, a home—here for almost a century, he seems to have kept a very low profile. 

“I think he just enjoyed socializing and traveling,” says Anthony Bruce, Executive Director of the Berkeley Architectural Heritage Association, whose family would occasionally cross paths with Havens shopping at the Star Grocery on Claremont. “He always seemed like a mysterious legend to me.” 

Havens appears to have been carefully reclusive with all but a close circle of friends. “I lived next door to him for 50 years and I never saw the interior of that house,” Doris Maslach once told me. She and her husband George, later dean of engineering and a vice chancellor at UC Berkeley, built their own modernist home adjacent to Havens on Panoramic Hill. 

Haven’s father, John Weston Havens was the nephew of Francis Kittredge Shattuck, one of Berkeley’s early American Era settlers and major landowners. According to writer Daniella Thompson, who described the house for the 2005 Berkeley Architectural Heritage Association Panoramic Hill House tour, “the childless Shattuck invited his nephew to live with him in Berkeley and made him his heir. John’s only child was John Weston Havens, Jr.” 

Reportedly born in the family mansion on eponymous Shattuck Avenue, downtown, Havens lost his mother at a young age. He grew up with his father and servants in a large home at 2631 Benvenue Ave. 

Bruce says his own mother grew up across the street and was friends with the Havens governess. Havens lived a privileged life, driven to and from school by a private chauffeur. He later attended UC Berkeley. 

He appears to have pursued adult life in a pleasant way, traveling, collecting, and socializing, supported by income from the extensive Shattuck investments and property holdings. Bruce says Havens seems to have divided his time between Berkeley and Santa Barbara, as well as traveling extensively. 

In the late 1930s, Thompson writes, “following a trip to Europe, where he purchased modern furniture by Alvar Aalto, Bruno Mathsson, and other Scandinavian designers, Havens arranged for a meeting” with Harwell Hamilton Harris. 

“He was collecting modern furniture and he needed a house for it,” Bruce surmises. Havens, then living at the foot of Panoramic Hill in the celebrated brown shingle Rieber House, showed Harris a steep lot he had purchased high on the slope. The house that Harris would later call “Havens Above” was the result. 

Havens is recalled by some short descriptions as an art “patron”—a broadly elusive term—but I couldn’t find any references to leadership or prominence in local cultural causes, clubs, organizations, or activities.  

Havens did commission one visible public philanthropy in Berkeley; a series of fountains in the middle of Shattuck Avenue, downtown, also designed by Hamilton Harwell Harris. The “Havens Fountains” survived only a few years until destroyed by construction of the underground BART tube.  

After he died in 2001, the liquidation and dispersal of his estate—to Stanford, the University of California, and a new Weston Havens Foundation that endows medical and scientific research—sent ripples through Berkeley’s propertied world. I can think of at least three local development and land use controversies that resulted from sale and/or development of former Havens properties. 

What about his private life? Adams describes him as “purportedly gay,” and that’s certainly the persistent impression and rumor. Havens grew up in an era when almost any gay man would have prudently remained very private and discreet. 

“He supposedly always had a ‘steady girlfriend’,” Bruce says, but wonders whether that was a social front of convenience for the man who remained unmarried. A collateral relative once told Bruce, “He’s my own cousin and I don’t know.”  

With wealth and leisure he would have been able to organize his life to avoid notice and maximize privacy. The house, Adams will explain, reflects that desire. She calls it “secret architecture … all about discreet obstacles,” a structure in which “the sleeping spaces were opaque and controlled (while) the house was also a carefully choreographed public spectacle.”  

Screened from the street by a high fence and entered across a “V” shaped bridge with sidewalls that block sightlines down onto the property, the Havens House opens itself only to the magnificent western view.  

It also seems clearly built for a bachelor. The sleeping quarters read as a series of master bedroom spaces, rather than the traditionally hierarchy of rooms for parents and children. Adams will draw comparisons to the internal arrangements of other famous modern era homes elsewhere in the country—some built for gay clients—as well as a house built earlier in the century in Berkeley for two women doctors who were apparently a couple. 

The lecture includes numerous period photographs of the house—which was extensively documented for magazine articles—and draws on correspondence of Harris, the architect, and admirers who visited Havens to see the house, and wrote to him about both their enjoyment of his home, and some of the enigmas it represented. 

The free lecture takes place from 7-8:30 p.m. at 112 Wurster Hall on the UC Berkeley campus.  

See www.ced.berkeley.edu/events and click on “Calendar” for a listing of College of Environmental Design October activities, including the Adams talk. 

Website of Professor Adams: www.mcgill.ca/architecture/faculty/adams/ 

Website of the Spring 2008 class she taught at Berkeley: web.mac.com/annmarieadams/Seminar/Arcus.html 

Arcus Endowment:  

www.ced.berkeley.edu/alumni/giving/cedcampaign/endowedchairs/arcus

THURSDAY, OCT. 9 

EXHIBITIONS 

“Residency Projects, Part 4” Works by Adriane Colburn, Taraneh Hemami, and Leslie Shows. Opening reception at 6 p.m. at Kala Art Institute, 1060 Heinz Ave. Exhibition runs through Nov. 22. 549-2977. www.kala.org 

“Berkeley, A City of Firsts” Thurs.-Sat. from 1 to 4 p.m. at Berkeley Historical Society, Veterans Memorial Bldg., 1931 Center St., through Oct. 19. 848-0181. 

”Human Form in a Wild World” Mixed media exhibition of wild animals and human figures in dream-like settings. Closing reception at 5 p.m. at Bucci’s, 6121 Hollis St., Emeryville. 547-4725. 

“Karl Kaster Retrospective” the Berkeley School 1930-50, Students, 1950-83, on display at the Worth Ryder Gallery Kroeber Hall, UC campus, through Oct. 24. 642-2582. 

READINGS AND LECTURES 

Martin Sanchez-Jankowski discusses his new book “Cracks in the Pavement: Social Change & Resilience in Poor Neighborhoods” at 6 p.m. at University Press Books, 2430 Bancroft Way. 548-0585. www.universitypressbooks.com 

Therese Poletti on “The Art Deco Architecture of Timothy Pfueger” at 7:30 p.m. at Chapel of the Chimes, 4499 Piedmont Ave. Sponsored by Oakland Heritage Alliance. Cost is $8-$10. 763-9218. 

Paul Ekman reads from “Emotional Awareness: Overcoming the Obstacles to Psychological Balance and Compassion” written in collaoration with the Dalai Lama, at 7:30 p.m. at Mrs. Dalloways, 2904 College Ave. 704-8222. 

Spoken Word Open Mic at 7:30 p.m. at Nomad Cafe, 6500 Shattuck Ave. 595-5344. www.nomadcafe.net 

MUSIC AND DANCE 

Kitka “Lullabies and Songs of Childhood” at 8 p.m. at St. Paul’s Church, 114 Montecito Ave. Tickets are $18-$25. 444-0323. www.kitka.org 

Big Light, Steve Taylor at 9 p.m. at Ashkenaz. Cost is $8-$10. 525-5054. www.ashkenaz.com 

Cesaria Evora at 8 p.m. at Zellerbach Hall, UC Campus. Tickets are $26-$48. 642-9988. www.calperformances.net 

Christine Lavin at 8 p.m. at Freight and Salvage. Cost is $22.50-$23.50. 548-1761. www.freightandsalvage.org 

Russ Lorenson & His Trio at 8 p.m. at Anna’s Jazz Island, 2120 Allston Way. Cost is $8. 841-JAZZ. www.AnnasJazzIsland.com 

Alter Ego at 7 p.m. at Caffe Trieste, 2500 San Pablo Ave., at Dwight. 548-5198.  

Alma Desnuda, Suburban Fix, Raya Nova, world psychedelic groove, at 9 p.m. at The Starry Plough. Cost is $9. 841-2082. www.starryploughpub.com 

Theresa Perez, Steve Taylor-Ramirez, Alfredo Gomez, in a tribute to José Alfredo Jiménez at 7:30 p.m. at La Peña Cultural Center. Cost is $6-$8. 849-2568. www.lapena.org 

Adrian West Trio, electric violin, at 7:30 p.m. at 33 Revolutions, 10086 San Pablo Ave., El Cerrito. 898-1836. 

The Dave G Following at 10 p.m. at Beckett’s Irish Pub, 2271 Shattuck Ave. 647-1790. www.beckettsirishpub.com 

Bill Frisell at 8 and 10 p.m., through Sun. at Yoshi’s at Jack London Square. Cost is $20-$24. 238-9200. www.yoshis.com 

FRIDAY, OCT. 10 

THEATER 

Altarena Playhouse “Bat Boy: The Musical” Fri. and Sat. at 8 p.m., Sun. at 2 p.m. at Altarena Playhouse, 1409 High St., Alameda, through Nov. 1. Tickets are $17-$20. 523-1553. www.altarena.org 

Berkeley Rep “Yellowjackets” by Itamar Moses, a Berkeley resident, set at Berkeley High School, Tues.-Sun. at the Thrust Stage, 2025 Addison St., through Oct. 12. Tickets are $27-$71. 647-2949. berkeleyrep.org 

California Conservatory Theatre “They’re Playing Our Song” Thurs.-Sat. at 8 p.m., 2 p.m. on Sat. and Sun. at 999 East 14th St, San Leandro City Hall Complex, near BART, through Oct. 12. Tickets are $20-$22. 632-8850. www.cct-sl.org 

Contra Costa Civic Theater “Witness for the Prosecution” Fri. and Sat. at 8 p.m., Sun. at 2 p.m. at 951 Pomona Ave., El Cerrito, through Oct. 19. 524-9132. www.ccct.org  

Druid Theater Company “The Playboy of the Western World” and “The Shadow of the Glen” Wed.-Fri. at 8 p.m., Sat. at 2 and 8 p.m., Sun. at 3 p.m. at The Roda Theater, 2025 Addison St. Tickets are $75. 642-9988. 

Galatean Players Ensemble Theater “Rivets” A musical based on Rosie the Riveter and Richmond’s Kaiser Shipyards, Thurs.-Sat. at 8 p.m., Sun. at 3 p.m. onboard the SS Red Oak Victory, 1337 Canal Blvd., Berth 6A, Richmond, through Oct. 26. Tickets are $20. 925-676-5705. galateanplayers.com 

Impact Theatre “Ching Chong Chinaman” Thurs.-Sat at 8 p.m. at La Val’s Subterranean, to Oct. 11. Tickets are $10-$17. 464-4468. impacttheatre.com 

Ragged Wing Ensemble “The History of the Devil” Fri. and Sat. at 8 p.m. at Central Stage, 5221 Central Ave., Richmond, Through Nov. 1. Tickets are $10-$30. www.raggedwing.org 

Shotgun Players “Vera Wilde” Thurs.-Sat. at 8 p.m., Sun. at 5 p.m. at The Ashby Stage, 1901 Ashby Ave., through Oct. 19. Tickets are $17-$25. 841-6500. www.shotgunplayers.org 

UC Dept. of Theater “Measure for Measure” Fri. and Sat. at 8 p.m., Sun. at 2 p.m. to Oct. 19 at Zellerbach Playhouse, UC campus. Tickets are $10-$15. 642-8827. 

EXHIBITIONS 

“Resuscitation” Group show of work in discarded materials. Opening reception at 6 p.m. at ACCI Gallery, 1652 Shattuck Ave. 843-2527. 

Landscape Art Show Preview at 7:30 p.m. at Hillside Club, 2286 Cedar St. Cost is $25. 644-2967.  

“Manifest Dreams” Contemporary Aboriginal art on display at Gaia Arts Center, 2120 Allston Way, through Jan. 6. 665-0305. 

FILM 

“Johnny Got His Gun” a new film version of the anti-war novel at Shattuck Theater. www.JohnnyGotHisGuntheMovie.com 

“The Battleship Potempkin” at 6:30 p.m. at the Pacific Film Archive. Cost is $5.50-$9.50. 642-0808.  

READINGS AND LECTURES 

Judy Wells and Gail Ford will read their poetry at 7 p.m. at Nefeli Caffe, 1854 Euclid Ave., a little north of Hearst. 841-6374.  

MUSIC AND DANCE 

Stefan and Friends Acoustic Jam At 8 p.m. at First Unitarian Church of Oakland, 685 14th St. Tickets are $14-$18. www.brownpapertickets.com/event/39763 

University Symphony Orchestra at 8 p.m. at Hertz Hall, UC Campus. Tickets are $5-$15. 642-4864.  

Aluna, Columbian folkloric band at 7:30 p.m. at La Peña Cultural Center. Cost is $15-$25. 849-2568. www.lapena.org 

Cesaria Evora at 8 p.m. at Zellerbach Hall, UC Campus. Tickets are $26-$48. 642-9988. www.calperformances.net 

John Yi Quartet at 8 p.m. at the Jazzschool. Cost is $12. 845-5373.  

Vicki Burns CD release party at 8 p.m. at Anna’s Jazz Island, 2120 Allston Way. Cost is $14. 841-JAZZ. www.AnnasJazzIsland.com 

Youssoupha Sidibe with Markius James & the Wassonrai at 9:30 p.m. at Ashkenaz. Cost is $12-$15. 525-5054. www.ashkenaz.com 

Pam & Jeri at 8 p.m. at Caffe Trieste, 2500 San Pablo Ave., at Dwight. 548-5198.  

Wylie & the Wild West at 8 p.m. at Freight and Salvage. Cost is $18.50-$19.50. 548-1761. www.freightandsalvage.org 

Glow In The Dark, Chris Ahlman at 7:30 p.m. at Nomad Cafe, 6500 Shattuck Ave. 595-5344.  

Kate Gaffney, Grace Woods Trio Aeode, in a benefit for Women Rock at 9 p.m. at The Starry Plough. Cost is $10. 841-2082. www.starryploughpub.com 

The New Trust, Build Us Airplanes, Cannons and Clouds at 8 p.m. at 924 Gilman St., an all-ages, member-run, no alcohol, no drugs, no violence club. Cost is $5. 525-9926. 

The Strangers at 10 p.m. at Beckett’s Irish Pub, 2271 Shattuck Ave. 647-1790. www.beckettsirishpub.com 

Jerry Kennedy, acoustic soul, at 7:30 p.m. at 33 Revolutions, 10086 San Pablo Ave., El Cerrito. 898-1836. 

PZ, Equipto at 9 p.m. at Shattuck Down Low, 2284 Shattuck Ave. Cost is $5-10. 548-1159.  

Terrence Brewer Trio at 8 p.m. at Jupiter. 843-8277. 

SATURDAY, OCT. 11 

CHILDREN  

Los Amiguitos de La Peña with Jerry Kennedy, blues and soul, at 10:30 a.m. at La Peña. Cost is $5 for adults, $4 for children. 849-2568. www.lapena.org 

“Aesop’s Fables” Sat. and Sun. at 12:30 and 3:30 p.m. at Children’s Fairyland, 699 Bellevue Ave., Oakland. Cost is $6. 452-2259. www.fairyland.org 

THEATER 

“Stories of East & West” with Japan’s Playback A-Z and Oakland’s Living Arts Theatre Ensemble in improvised theater, at 8 p.m. at Laney College Theater, 900 Fallon St., Oakland. Tickets are $10-$18. 595-5500, ext. 25. 

“How My Grandmother Found a Story in a Plate” performance by Patricia Bulitt at 1 p.m. at South Branch, Berkeley Public Library, 1901 Russell St. at MLK Jr. Way. Suitable for all ages. 981-6107. 

EXHIBITIONS 

Landscape Art Show Sat. and Sun. from 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. at Hillside Club, 2286 Cedar St. 644-2967. 

Bronze Casting Art Show Bronze pouring demonstrations at 9 and 10 p.m. at Berkeley Art Complex, 729 Heinz St. Tours of foundry at 7 p.m. 644-2735. www.artworksfoundry.com 

“Color Explosion” Works exploring the dynamics of color and light. Opening reception at 6 p.m. at Expressions Gallery, 2035 Ashby Ave. 644-4930. 

The Compositional “X” Recent work by Jon Kwak. Artist reception at 4 p.m. at Auto Row Smog Gallery, 3060 Broadway, Oakland. 451-7664. 

The Compound Studio Artists Opening reception at 6 p.m. at The Compound Gallery, 6604 San Pablo Ave., Oakland. 655-9019. www.thecompoundgallery.com 

READINGS AND LECTURES 

Wendy Lee reads from “Happy Family” a novel about a Chinese immigrant in New York at 3:30 p.m. at Eastwind Books of Berkeley, 2066 University Ave. 548-2350. 

Haruki Murakami reads from his works and talks about his writing process at 8 p.m. at Zellerbach Hall, UC Campus. Tickets are $16-$30. 642-9988. www.calperformances.net 

MUSIC AND DANCE 

Breath of Asia, traditional and contemporary Vietnamese music, at 2:30 p.m. at Oakland Museum of California, 1000 Oak St., Oakland. Cost is $13-$18. 238-2200. www.museumca.org 

Artists’ Vocal Ensemble “St. Francis of Assisi: Musings on a New World Order” at 8 p.m. at St. Mark’s Episcopal Church, 2300 Bancroft Way. Tickets are $10-$20. www.ave-music.org 

Eighth Annual Harvest of Song at 7:30 p.m. at Berkeley Art Center, 1275 Walnut St. Pre-concert discussion at 6:30 p.m. Tickets are $12-$15. 644-6893. www.berkeleyartcenter.org 

University Symphony Orchestra at 8 p.m. at Hertz Hall, UC Campus. Tickets are $5-$15. 642-4864. http://music.berkeley.edu 

MamacoAtl, Paul Flores & Los Nadies “The Immigrant Experience” at 8 p.m. at La Peña Cultural Center. Cost is $10-$12. 849-2568. www.lapena.org 

Upsurge Jazz & Poetry at 8 p.m. at Anna’s Jazz Island, 2120 Allston Way. Cost is $12. 841-JAZZ. www.AnnasJazzIsland.com 

Lakay & Mystic Man, Faux Mojo at 9:30 p.m. at Ashkenaz. Cost is $10-$15. 525-5054. www.ashkenaz.com  

Carolyn Dowd, Americana, at 7 p.m. at 33 Revolutions, 10086 San Pablo Ave., El Cerrito. 898-1836. 

Ryan Grandfield, Pine at 7:30 p.m. at Nomad Cafe, 6500 Shattuck Ave. 595-5344. www.nomadcafe.net 

Gyan Riley Trio at 8 p.m. at Freight and Salvage. Cost is $18.50-$19.50. 548-1761. www.freightandsalvage.org 

Mads Tolling Trio “Jazz Violin 101” at 8 p.m. at the Jazzschool. Cost is $15. 845-5373. www.jazzschool.com 

George Cotsirilos Jazz Trio at 9:30 p.m. at Albatross, 1822 San Pablo Ave. Cost is $3. 843-2473. www.albatrosspub.com 

The Stairwell Sisters, The Earl Brothers at 9 p.m. at The Starry Plough. Cost is $10. 841-2082. www.starryploughpub.com 

CV Dub at 8 p.m. at Jupiter. 843-8277. 

One Way System, Poop, Resilience at 8 p.m. at 924 Gilman St., an all-ages, member-run, no alcohol, no drugs, no violence club. Cost is $8. 525-9926. 

Bill Frisell at 8 and 10 p.m., through Sun. at Yoshi’s at Jack London Square. Cost is $20-$24. 238-9200. www.yoshis.com 

SUNDAY, OCT. 12 

THEATER 

“How the West Was Won” with Charlie Hill, Native American comedian and Gary Aylesworth at 7 p.m. at Laney College Theater, 900 Fallon St. Benefit for East Bay Waldorf School. For ticket information call 243-0797. iricbridges@aol.com 

READINGS AND LECTURES 

“Art Connections: Robert Williams” A conversation with the artist on his works in the current exhibition “L.A. Paint” at 2 p.m. at Oakland Museum of California, 1000 Oak St., Oakland. Free admission. 238-2200. www.museumca.org 

Diane Johnson reads from her new novel “Lulu in Marrakech” at 3 p.m. at Mrs. Dalloways, 2904 College Ave. 704-8222. 

Architecture Tour of the buildings and grounds designed by Kevin Roche and Dan Kiley at 1 p.m. at Oakland Museum of California, 1000 Oak St., Oakland. Free Admission. 238-2200. www.museumca.org 

Eth6 Magazine Issue 3:Contributing Artist Exhibition Readings at 2 p.m. at blankspace, 6608 San Pablo Ave., Oakland. 547-6608. 

“Everyone Has a Story to Tell” John Fox will discuss “Memory Lab” a Jewish digital narrative project at 2 p.m. at Magnes Museum, 2911 Russell St. Cost is $6-$8. RSVP to 549-6950 ext. 345. 

MUSIC AND DANCE 

Eighth Annual Harvest of Song at 7:30 p.m. at Berkeley Art Center, 1275 Walnut St. Pre-concert discussion at 6:30 p.m. Tickets are $12-$15. 644-6893. www.berkeleyartcenter.org 

The Ateneo Chamber Singers at 4 p.m. at St. Joseph the Worker Church, 1640 Addision St. Tickets are $15-$20. 843-2244. 

The Prometheus Symphony Orchestra presents Tchaikovsky Symphony No.4, Copland’s Variations on a Shaker Melody, and Two Suites for Orchestra by Stravinsky at 3 p.m. at St. Paul’s Episcopal Church, 114 Montecito Ave., Oakland. www.prometheussymphony.org 

“On The Nature Of Nature” a concert featuring new experimental instruments composed and performed by Krystyna Bobrowski, Dan Dugan, Guillermo Galindo and Wendy Reid at 8 p.m. in the Garden of the Oakland Museum of California, 1000 Oak St. TIckets are $15-$20. www.museumca.org 

Miss Vintage, Andy Grammer in a concert to raise awareness about the humanitarian crisis in North Korea, at 7:30 p.m. at Julia Morgan Center for the Arts, 2640 College Ave. www.linkglobal.org/libertylive 

Catie Curtis at 8 p.m. at Freight and Salvage. Cost is $20.50-$21.50. 548-1761. www.freightandsalvage.org 

La Peña Community Chorus Cabaret at 7:30 p.m. at La Peña. Cost is $15. 849-2568. www.lapena.org 

Zarate Project at 8 p.m. at Anna’s Jazz Island, 2120 Allston Way. Cost is $10. 841-JAZZ. www.AnnasJazzIsland.com 

Garrick Davis at 11 a.m. at Nomad Cafe, 6500 Shattuck Ave. 595-5344. www.nomadcafe.net 

Mercury Dimes, family square dance at 3 p.m. at Ashkenaz. Cost is $4-$6. 525-5054. www.ashkenaz.com 

Yehudit at 4:30 p.m. at the Jazzschool. Cost is $12-$15. 845-5373. www.jazzschool.com 

Zap Guru, jazz, rock, jam at 2 p.m. at 33 Revolutions, 10086 San Pablo Ave., El Cerrito. 898-1836. 

The Ravines at 3 p.m. at Spud’s Pizza, 3290 Adeline St. at Alcatraz. www.spudspizza.net 

MONDAY, OCT. 13 

EXHIBITIONS 

“Poorman’s Art Show” Works on cardboard opens at the Float Gallery, 1091 Calcot Place, #116, Oakland. Runs through Nov. 8. 535-1702. 

“Art from the Heart” opens at NIAD Center for Art and Disabilities, 551 23rd St., Richmond, and runs through Dec. 19. 620-0290. www.niadart.org 

READINGS AND LECTURES 

Raj Patel, author of “Stuffed and Starved” at 6:30 p.m. at First Congregational Church of Oakland, 2501 Harrison St. Sponsored by Priority Africa Network. 238-8080. www.priorityafrica.org 

David Weinstein introduces “It Came from Berkeley: How Berkeley Changed the World” at 7 p.m. at Kensington Library, 61 Arlington Ave. 524-3043. 

Naomi Wolf and Daniel Ellsberg “Give Me Liberty” at 7:30 p.m. at First Congregational Church of Berkeley, 2345 Channing Way. Tickets are $12-$15. 848-3696. 

Hasan Elahi on his digital media projct “Tracking Transcience: The Orwell Project” on his experiences with FBI interrogation, at 7:30 p.m. at 160 Kroeber Hall, UC campus. 642-0635. http://atc.berkeley.edu 

El Cerrito Art Association with speaker Karen LeGault on her Chinese brush painting technique at 7:30 p.m. at El Cerrito Community Center, 7007 Moeser Lane, near Ashbury Ave. 234-5028. 

MUSIC AND DANCE 

Parlor Tango at 7 p.m. at Caffe Trieste, 2500 San Pablo Ave., at Dwight. 548-5198.  

Catie Curtis at 8 p.m. at Freight and Salvage. Cost is $20.50-$21.50. 548-1761. www.freightandsalvage.org 

George Cole, gypsy jazz, at 8 p.m. at 33 Revolutions, 10086 San Pablo Ave., El Cerrito. 898-1836. 

Downtown Jam Session with Glen Pearson at 7 p.m. at Ed Kelly Hall, Oakland Public Conservatory of Music, 1616 Franklin St., Oakland. Cost is $5. www.opcmucsic.org 

Eric Vloeimans at 8 and 10 p.m. at Yoshi’s at Jack London Square. Cost is $5. 238-9200. www.yoshis.com 

TUESDAY, OCT. 14 

READINGS AND LECTURES 

Writers at Work with Professor Robert Reich of the Goldman School of Public Policy on his works and writing process at noon in the Morrison Library, 101 Doe Library, UC campus. 

Ernest Callenbach introduces “Ecology: A Pocket Guide” at 6 p.m. at University Press Books, 2430 Bancroft Way. 548-0585. www.universitypressbooks.com 

MUSIC AND DANCE 

Carlos Arozco, Venezuelan harpist, presented by the Embassy of Venezuela, at 7:30 p.m. at La Peña Cultural Center. Cost is $13-$15. 849-2568. www.lapena.org 

Kirov Ballet & Orchestra of the Mariinsky Theater at 8 p.m. at Zellerbach Hall, UC Campus. Tickets are $50-$125. 642-9988. www.calperformances.net 

Zydeco Flames at 8:30 p.m. at Ashkenaz. Cajun dance lesson at 8 p.m. Cost is $10. 525-5054. www.ashkenaz.com 

Singers’ Open Mic with Ellen Hoffman at 8 p.m. at Anna’s Jazz Island, 2120 Allston Way. Cost is $5. 841-JAZZ. www.AnnasJazzIsland.com 

Terri Hendrix with Lloyd Maines & Stevie Coyle at 8 p.m. at Freight and Salvage. Cost is $18.50-$19.50. 548-1761. www.freightandsalvage.org 

Brian Woods Ensemble, jazz, at 7 p.m. at Caffe Trieste, 2500 San Pablo Ave., at Dwight. 548-5198.  

Johnny Nitro’s Blues Jam at 7 p.m. at 33 Revolutions, 10086 San Pablo Ave., El Cerrito. 898-1836. 

Babatunde Lea Quartet at 8 and 10 p.m. at Yoshi’s at Jack London Square. Cost is $20. 238-9200. www.yoshis.com 

WEDNESDAY, OCT. 15 

EXHIBITIONS 

“Diversity” Artwork by over 70 artists with developmental disabilities. Reception at 4:30 p.m. at Joseph P. Bort MetroCenter, 3rd flr., 101 Eighth St., Oakland. 817-5773. 

FILM 

Latino Film Festival “Orozco: Man of Fire” at 6:30 p.m. at Richmond Public Library, Madeline F. Whittlesey Community Room, 325 Civic Center Plaza, Richmond. Free. 620-6561. 

READINGS AND LECTURES 

“Art of the Memoir” with David Henry Sterry, Beth Listick and Alan Black at 7:30 p.m. at First Congregational Church of Berkeley, 2345 Channing Way. Tickets are $10 at the door. 

Cafe Poetry at 7:30 p.m. at La Peña. 849-2568. www.lapena.org 

Berkeley Poetry Slam with host Charles Ellik and Three Blind Mice, at 8:30 p.m. at The Starry Plough. Cost is $7. 841-2082 .www.starryploughpub.com 

MUSIC AND DANCE 

Wednesday Noon Concert, with University Gospel Choir at Hertz Hall, UC Campus. Free. 642-4864. http://music.berkeley.edu 

Dima & Mike Greensill Trio at 8 p.m. at Anna’s Jazz Island, 2120 Allston Way. Cost is $10. 841-JAZZ. www.AnnasJazzIsland.com 

Whiskey Brothers old-time and bluegrass at 9 p.m. at Albatross, 1822 San Pablo Ave. 843-2473. www.albatrosspub.com 

Buxter Hoot’n, The Sacred Profanities at 9 p.m. at Ashkenaz. Cost is $10. 525-5054. www.ashkenaz.com 

Ed Neff & Friends, bluegrass, at 7 p.m. at Le Bateau Ivre, 2629 Telegraph Ave. www.lebateauivre.net 

Tito Garcia at 9:30 p.m. at Shattuck Down Low, 2284 Shattuck Ave. Salsa dance lessons at 8:30 p.m. Cost is $5-$10. 548-1159.  

Russ Barnenberg & Bryan Sutton at 8 p.m. at Freight and Salvage. Cost is $18.50-$19.50. 548-1761. www.freightandsalvage.org 

Babatunde Lea Quartet at 8 and 10 p.m. at Yoshi’s at Jack London Square. Cost is $20. 238-9200. www.yoshis.com 

THURSDAY, OCT. 16 

EXHIBITIONS 

“Walls” Paintings by Joel Isaacson on contemporary social and political concerns, at Flora Lamson Hewlett Library, 2400 Ridge Rd. Exhibition runs to Jan. 30. 649-2500. www.gtu.edu 

READINGS AND LECTURES 

"Preservation Works" A panel discussion on the benefits of architectural preservation for a city at 7:30 p.m. at The Hillside Club, Cedar St. at Arch. Sponsored by Berkeley Architectural Heritage Association. Free. 841-2242. www.berkeleyheritage.com 

Patrick Coffey describes “Cathedrals of Science: The Personalities & Rivalries that Made Modern Chemistry” at 6 p.m. at University Press Books, 2430 Bancroft Way. 548-0585. www.universitypressbooks.com 

Poetry Flash with Ed Pavlic and Sean Hill at 7:30 p.m. at Moe’s Books, 2476 Telegraph Ave. 849-2087. 

“Love Never Fails” Works by Kelvin Curry. Artist talk at 7 p.m., music at 5 p.m., at the Craft & Cultural Arts Gallery, State of California Office Building - Atrium, 1515 Clay St., Oakland. 622-8190. 

Peter Orner and Annie Holmes describe “Underground America: Narratives of Undocumented Lives” at 7:30 p.m. at Mrs. Dalloways, 2904 College Ave. 704-8222. 

MUSIC AND DANCE 

Bobby Tenor, Binghi Drummers, in a Perter Tosh Birthday Celebration at 9:30 p.m. at Ashkenaz. Cost is $12-$15. 525-5054. www.ashkenaz.com 

Laura Love with Orville Johnson at 8 p.m. at Freight and Salvage. Cost is $18.50-$19.50. 548-1761. www.freightandsalvage.org 

Sandra Aran Trio at 8 p.m. at Anna’s Jazz Island, 2120 Allston Way. Cost is $10. 841-JAZZ. www.AnnasJazzIsland.com 

Beth Waters at 7 p.m. at Caffe Trieste, 2500 San Pablo Ave., at Dwight. 548-5198.  

Bright Black Morning Light, Meara Feather’s Avocet at 9 p.m. at The Starry Plough. Cost is $10. 841-2082 www.starryploughpub.com 

Gregg Cross at 10 p.m. at Beckett’s Irish Pub, 2271 Shattuck Ave. 647-1790. www.beckettsirishpub.com 

Faye Carol at 8 and 10 p.m. at Yoshi’s at Jack London Square, through Sun. Cost is TBD. 238-9200. www.yoshis.com 

Dietsnaks at 8 p.m. at Jupiter. 843-8277. 

FRIDAY, OCT. 17 

THEATER 

Altarena Playhouse “Bat Boy: The Musical” Fri. and Sat. at 8 p.m., Sun. at 2 p.m. at Altarena Playhouse, 1409 High St., Alameda, through Nov. 1. Tickets are $17-$20. 523-1553. www.altarena.org 

Contra Costa Civic Theater “Witness for the Prosecution” Fri. and Sat. at 8 p.m., Sun. at 2 p.m. at 951 Pomona Ave., El Cerrito, through Oct. 19. 524-9132. www.ccct.org  

Galatean Players Ensemble Theater “Rivets” A musical based on Rosie the Riveter and Richmond’s Kaiser Shipyards, Thurs.-Sat. at 8 p.m., Sun. at 3 p.m. onboard the SS Red Oak Victory, 1337 Canal Blvd., Berth 6A, Richmond, through Oct. 26. Tickets are $20. 925-676-5705. galateanplayers.com 

Ragged Wing Ensemble “The History of the Devil” Fri. and Sat. at 8 p.m. at Central Stage, 5221 Central Ave., Richmond, Through Nov. 1. Tickets are $10-$30. www.raggedwing.org 

Shotgun Players “Vera Wilde” Thurs.-Sat. at 8 p.m., Sun. at 5 p.m. at The Ashby Stage, 1901 Ashby Ave., through Oct. 19. Tickets are $17-$25. 841-6500. www.shotgunplayers.org 

UC Dept. of Theater “Measure for Measure” Fri. and Sat. at 8 p.m., Sun. at 2 p.m. at Zellerbach Playhouse, UC campus. Tickets are $10-$15. 642-8827. 

Woman’s Will “Macbeth” Thurs.-Sat. at 8 p.m., Sun. at 2 p.m. at The Retail Theater Space, 95 Washington, Jack London Square, Oakland, through Oct. 26. Tickets are $15-$25. 420-0813. www.womanswill.org 

EXHIBITIONS 

“Manifest Dreams” Contemporary Aboriginal art. Opening reception at 7 p.m. at Gaia Arts Center, 2120 Allston Way. Tickets are $10-$15. Exhibition runs through through Jan. 6. 665-0305. 

READINGS AND LECTURES 

Living Word Festival “Race is Fiction” at 7 p.m. at Oakland Museum of California, 1000 Oak St. A panel and presentation with Adam Mansbach and Jeff Chang, and Urban Word NYC. www.youthspeaks.org 

“China Transformed: Artscape/Cityscape” Keynote address by Wu Hung at 4 p.m. at Berkeley Art Museum Theater, 2651 Durant Ave. 642-2809. 

Dave Weinstein reads from “It Came from Berkeley: How Berkeley Changed the World” at 7:30 p.m. at Mrs. Dalloways, 2904 College Ave. 704-8222. 

“Love, Loss and Longing” The story, in photographs, of Cuban families torn apart. Reception at 5:30 p.m. Oakland City Hall, HR 3. 832-2372. 

Open Mic Literature and Poetry at 7 p.m. at Expressions Gallery, 2035 Ashby Ave. 644-4930. 

MUSIC AND DANCE 

Kirov Ballet & Orchestra of the Mariinsky Theater at 8 p.m. at Zellerbach Hall, UC Campus. Tickets are $50-$125. 642-9988. www.calperformances.net 

Dave Matthews Soultet & Tony Lindsey at 8 p.m. at Anna’s Jazz Island, 2120 Allston Way. Cost is $14. 841-JAZZ. www.AnnasJazzIsland.com 

Arian Shafiee: Margin Project at 8 p.m. at the Jazzschool. Cost is $10. 845-5373. www.jazzschool.com 

Trio Garufa at 9:30 p.m. at Ashkenaz. Tango lesson at 8 p.m. Cost is $12-$15. 525-5054. www.ashkenaz.com 

Orquesta La Moderna Tradición at 9 p.m. at La Peña Cultural Center. Cost is $12. 849-2568. www.lapena.org 

Acoustic Son at 8 p.m. at Caffe Trieste, 2500 San Pablo Ave., at Dwight. 548-5198.  

Eliza Gilkyson at 8 p.m. at Freight and Salvage. Cost is $22.50-$23.50. 548-1761. www.freightandsalvage.org 

Garrin Benfield at 7:30 p.m. at Nomad Cafe, 6500 Shattuck Ave. 595-5344. www.nomadcafe.net 

The Whoreshoes, The Barefoot Nellies, The Mighty Crows at 9 p.m. at The Starry Plough. Cost is $10. 841-2082. www.starryploughpub.com 

Plan 9, Verse, Killing the Dream at 8 p.m. at 924 Gilman St., an all-ages, member-run, no alcohol, no drugs, no violence club. Cost is $5. 525-9926. 

Justin Ancheta at 9:30 p.m. at Beckett’s Irish Pub, 2271 Shattuck Ave. 647-1790. www.beckettsirishpub.com 

“Prepare for a Future” Pre-election party with Valerie Troutt & The Fear of a Fat Planet Crew, Linda Tillery & The Cultural Heritage Choir, plus voter registration and ballot information at 9 p.m. at Shattuck Down Low, 2284 Shattuck Ave. Cost is $10. 548-1159.  

Jerry Kennedy, acoustic soul, at 7:30 p.m. at 33 Revolutions, 10086 San Pablo Ave., El Cerrito. 898-1836. 

Arturo O’Farrill t 8 and 10 p.m., through Sun. at Yoshi’s at Jack London Square. Cost is $18. 238-9200. www.yoshis.com 

SATURDAY, OCT. 18 

CHILDREN  

Los Amiguitos de La Peña with Asheba, Caribbean music, at 10:30 a.m. at La Peña. Cost is $5 for adults, $4 for children. 849-2568. www.lapena.org 

John Weaver Storyteller, Sat. and Sun. at 12:30 and 3:30 p.m. at Children’s Fairyland, 699 Bellevue Ave., Oakland. Cost is $6. 452-2259. www.fairyland.org 

EXHIBITIONS 

Neighborhood Public Arts Project Artist reception at 2 p.m. at Richmond Art Center, 2540 Barrett Ave. at 25th St., Richmond. 620-6772. www.therichmondartcenter.org 

“Poorman’s Art Show” Works on cardboard. Opening party at 6 p.m. at Float Gallery, 1091 Calcot Place, #116, Oakland. Runs through Nov. 8. 535-1702. 

READINGS AND LECTURES 

Telling Tales: A Fall Storytelling Festival featuring Awele Makeba, Kirk Waller, Nancy Schimmel and Walker Brents III, from noon to 5 p.m. at Berkwood Hedge School, 1809 Bancroft Way. Cost is $7, $20 per family. 883-6994.  

“An Evening of Spoken Word” with Charles Ekabhumi Ellik and Berkeley Poetry Slam team at 7 p.m. at Sconehenge Cafe, 2787 Shattuck Ave. 526-5075. 

Susan Quinn reads from “Furious Improovisation: How the WPA and a Cast of Thousands Made High Art Out of Desperate Times” at 5 p.m. at Mrs. Dalloways, 2904 College Ave. 704-8222. 

Lee Herrick and Jennifer Kwon Dobbs read from their works on the Korean Diaspora at 3:30 p.m. at Eastwind Books of Berkeley, 2066 University Ave. 548-2350. 

“China Transformed: Artscape/Cityscape” Symposium on art in contemporary China from 9:30 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. at Berkeley Art Museum Theater, 2651 Durant Ave. 642-2809. 

Eliezer Sobel describes “The 99th Monkey: A Spiritual Journalist’s Misadventures with Gurus, Messiahs, Sex, Psychodelics, and Other Consciousness-Raising Experiments” at 7:30 p.m. at Pegasus Books Downtown, 2349 Shattuck Ave. 649-1320. 

Rhythm & Muse spoken word & music open mic with Leah Steinberg at 7 p.m. at Berkeley Art Center, 1275 Walnut St., between Eunice and Rose Sts., behind Live Oak Park. 644-6893.  

MUSIC AND DANCE 

Philharmonia Baroque “Bach Reconstructed” at 8 p.m. at First Congregational Church of Berkeley, 2345 Channing. Tickets are $30-$72. 415-252-1288. 

Tree Talk, music for two bassoons with Alice Benjamin and David Granger at 8 p.m. at Trinity Chapel, 2320 Dana St. Tickets are $8-$12. 549-3864. www.trinitychamberconcerts.com 

The Function at 9 p.m. at La Peña Cultural Center. Cost is $7-$10. 849-2568. www.lapena.org 

Ray Obiedo Group at 8 p.m. at Anna’s Jazz Island, 2120 Allston Way. Cost is $14. 841-JAZZ. www.AnnasJazzIsland.com 

Kabile, Balkan at 8:30 p.m. at Ashkenaz. Cost is $18. 525-5054. www.ashkenaz.com  

red black and green Environmental hip hop concert with Mos Def, Los Rakas and others from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. at deFremey Park, 1651 Adeline St., West Oakland. Free. www.youthspeaks.org 

“Gimme a Cuppa Joe” with Country Joe McDonald at 7:30 p.m. at Café de la Paz, 1600 Shattuck. Tickets are $25. 843-0662. 

David Greco, not an Airplane at 7:30 p.m. at Nomad Cafe, 6500 Shattuck Ave. 595-5344. www.nomadcafe.net 

Eliza Gilkyson at 8 p.m. at Freight and Salvage. Cost is $22.50-$23.50. 548-1761. www.freightandsalvage.org 

Ed Reed, CD release, at 8 p.m. at the Jazzschool. Cost is $15. 845-5373. www.jazzschool.com 

Amy X Neuberg at 8 p.m. at Wisteria Ways, Rockridge, Oakland. Not wheelchair accesiible. Cost is $15-$20. Reservations required. info@WisteriaWays.org 

Bluegrass Revolution at 10 p.m. at Beckett’s Irish Pub, 2271 Shattuck Ave. 647-1790. www.beckettsirishpub.com 

Dave Matthews Blues Band at 8:30 p.m. at Royal Oak Pub, 135 Park Place, Pt. Richmond. 232-5678. 

The Lloyd Family Players, Gamelan X at 9 p.m. at The Starry Plough. Cost is $10. 841-2082.  

Harry Gray with the Kreinberg Brothers, rock’n’ reggae, at 7 p.m. at 33 Revolutions, 10086 San Pablo Ave., El Cerrito. 898-1836. 

Oppressed Logic, SMD, Crucial Cause at 8 p.m. at 924 Gilman St., an all-ages, member-run, no alcohol, no drugs, no violence club. Cost is $5. 525-9926. 

SUNDAY, OCT. 19 

FILM 

Envisioning Russia: “Jewish Luck” at 1:30 p.m. at the Pacific Film Archive. Cost is $5.50-$9.50. 642-0808. www.bampfa.berkeley.edu 

Talk Cinema Berkeley Preview of new independent films with discussion afterwards at 10 a.m. at Albany Twin Theater, 1115 Solano Ave., Albany. Cost is $20. http://talkcinema.com 

READINGS AND LECTURES 

Day of the Dead Artists A conversation with Miriam Martinez and Yoland Garfias Woo at 2 p.m. at Oakland Museum of California, 1000 Oak St., Oakland. Cost is $5-$8. 238-2200. www.museumca.org 

Dave Weinstein on his new book “It Came From Berkeley: How Berkeley Changed the World” at 2 p.m. at the Berkeley History Center, 1931 Center St. 848-0181. 

Stephen Ingram describes “Cacti Agaves, and Yuccas of California and Nevada” at 4 p.m. at Mrs. Dalloways, 2904 College Ave. 704-8222. 

MUSIC AND DANCE 

Leon Chisholm, organ, “Baroque Inventions and Re-inventions” at 4 p.m. at St. John’s Presbyterian Church, 2727 College Ave. Tickets are $10-$20. 684-7563. 

California Bach Society performs “Gott ist mein König” and “Ich hatte viel Bekümmernis” at 4 p.m. at St. Mark’s Episcopal Church, 2300 Bancroft Way, at Ellsworth. Tickets are $10-$30. 415-262-0272. www.calbach.org 

Jazz at the Chimes with Jamie Davis, baritone, at 2 p.m. at Chapel of the Chimes, 4499 Piedmont Ave., Oakland. Tickets are $10-$15, children under 12 free. 228-3218. 

Teresa Trull & Barbara Higbie at 8 p.m. at Freight and Salvage. Cost is $24.50-$25.50. 548-1761. www.freightandsalvage.org 

Piotr Anderszewski, piano, at 5 p.m. at Hertz Hall, UC Campus. Tickets are $46. 642-9988. www.calperformances.net 

Philharmonia Baroque “Bach Reconstructed” at 7:30 p.m. at First Congregational Church of Berkeley, 2345 Channing. Tickets are $30-$72. 415-252-1288. 

The Micha Patri and The Junk Jazz Symphony, celebrating the African roots of jazz, at 6:30 p.m. at La Peña. Cost is $10. 849-2568. www.lapena.org 

Classical Trio at 5 p.m. at First United Methodist Church, 201 Martina St., Point Richmond. 236-0527. 

Brazilian Flavor with Dandara at 8 p.m. at Anna’s Jazz Island, 2120 Allston Way. Cost is $10. 841-JAZZ. www.AnnasJazzIsland.com 

Thomas Lavigne at 11 a.m. at Nomad Cafe, 6500 Shattuck Ave. 595-5344. www.nomadcafe.net 

Pappa Gianni & North Beach Band at 2 p.m. at Caffe Trieste, 2500 San Pablo Ave., at Dwight. 548-5198.  

UC Berkeley Folkdancers Reunion at 1:30 p.m. at Ashkenaz. Cost is $7. 525-5054. www.ashkenaz.com 

It’s just before a matinee at the Julia Morgan Center and the theater is flooded with families, lots of kids. And the kids are being given a speech lesson. But it’s taught by pirates—eyepatches, hooks and headscarves, literally out of a storybook, mingling with the audience, saying “Aarrr!” and “Avast!” over and over, followed by a roar of youthful voices. The exclamations appear, projected on the pirate ship’s sail. 

Later on, in Active Arts for Young Audiences’ show, How I Became a Pirate, when the crew of corsairs teaches the new recruit the lingo, breaking into song, they ask the audience to join in—and the happy din, “talking in pirate,” is even greater for the pre-show practice. 

How I Became a Pirate is adapted from the children’s book, written by Melinda Long and David Shannon, in which a young boy joins the pirates, learning about swabbing the deck, weathering a storm at sea—but also teaches his teachers how to play soccer and where to bury the treasure—in his backyard—when he gets homesick.  

“Our focus is to adapt great children’s books to the stage,” said Nina Meehan of Active Arts. “We tend to do musicals, and choose books in the reading range of four to 12-year-olds. One of our basic jobs in theater is to tell a good story, a story our audiences are familiar with, or one we encourage them to read and relive portions of the show they saw as they read.” 

Active Arts endeavors to reach a wider audience than just the young readers their staged stories are aimed at. “We want people of all ages to feel welcome in our theater,” Meehan said. The lineup of the program for the 2008-9 season shows that. 

“How I Became a Pirate is a fairly new book,” Meehan explained, “and was recipient of an American Library Association Notable Children’s Book Award. It was adapted originally by a theater in Chicago. The kids know it—their moms and dads don’t. At our booth at the Solano Stroll, kids would come up and say, ‘I read that in school’—and parents would say, ‘Let’s check it out of the library and read it together tonight.’” 

“With our next show, in late January and February,” Meehan went on, “it’s the reverse. Moms and dads know Pippi Longstocking, but not always the kids. We plan to have an exhibit about author Astrid Lindgren’s other Pippi books and about the books she wrote about a little boy named Emile.” 

The final show of the season, in April and early May, is something everyone knows: Lewis Carroll’s Alice in Wonderland, in a new version, Wonderland, created by Jeff Raz, famous for his participation in Cirque du Soleil, and the Clown Conservatory of the San Francisco Circus Center, where Raz teaches, and produced by Active Arts.  

“It’s exciting, a perfect synergy between two groups,” Meehan said. “We thought of commissioning an adaptation for our third show, then heard they were developing this. They have the show, we have the audience. It’s a great way for our audience to get to know the Circus Center. They have a contortionist, a juggler, a magician, acrobats ... all to tell the Alice story in circus fashion. We get to explore where theater and circus meet—the excitement and magic of the circus, the story-telling and creativity of the theater.” 

Active Arts was founded in 2004 and has been staging shows at the Julia Morgan for four years. This season, they’re adding two weekends in San Ramon as well. Their season subscription list has grown from 30 to 400. 

Meehan relates how a mother stopped her in the lobby to say how seeing a past show, Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day, by Judith Viorst, affected her son. “She told me that for a year after, whenever her son had a bad day—and kids do have bad days!—she’d ask, ‘What happened to Alex?’ and take out the book—and it would make the day better.”

At the time of the French Revolution, William Blake wrote, in “The Marriage of Heaven & Hell,” that Milton had been “a true Poet of the Devil’s party without knowing it.” Several generations of Gothic tales and Romantic and “Decadent” works followed, transforming the devil into a modern creature, even an aesthete—quite a jump from medieval Satan or the Mephistopheles of the Renaissance. And before Baudelaire and Dostoyevsky assailed Progress by saying the cleverest trick of the devil was to convince mankind he didn’t exist, Jean-Paul Richter, well before Nietzsche, told of a dream in which a voice announced that God was dead. 

Here and there, the devil turns up on stage as a litigant. In the movie version of Stephen Benet’s The Devil and Daniel Webster, Walter Huston as Mr. Scratch contends with Old Ichabod for the soul of a New England farmer. Breach of contract is the devil’s case; an American cannot serve a foreign prince, is how Webster begins his defense. Ah, says the devil, I’ve been on this soil longer than anybody! 

And now Ragged Wing Ensemble is performing Clive Barker’s The History of the Devil, at Central Stage, right off I-80 on Central Ave., Richmond Annex—a play from the ‘80s which the author said is best described as “John Milton meets John Grisham.” 

With the officers of the court drawn, or dragged, to the ends of the earth, the devil goes on trial quite willingly, wanting to ascend once again to heaven. After an opening statement, he asks the court to rule, so sure is he of his innocence—a simple self-description should suffice. But instead a parade of witnesses are called to testify, some of them lost souls, literally wriggling out of their graves, and the testimonies become flashbacks that take the audience—more or less seated as the jury—back to the devil’s first contact with humankind (great bruises on his back where the wings were before he fell); to a Hellenic settlement (where the Greeks act more like Romans) in South Asia, barbarians vying with the corruption of the locals; to a dungeon for women convicted of witchcraft, to a bareknuckle prizefight in 18th century London ... even the testimony of Lucifer’s estranged wife Lilith, a moment that clearly unnerves the defendant. 

Ragged Wing stages the play, directed by Jeffrey Hoffman, to bring out their physical (and total) theatrics.  

It opens and is punctuated by cello music from El Beh (who played the lead in Woman’s Will’s Good Person of Szechuan), later playing a very willing South Asian boy among the Greeks. A hoary Belial (Anna Kennard and Hillary Milton) absconds with barrister Sam Kyle (Kevin Copps) from London to Africa to plead the defense, where ambitious prosecutor Catherine Lamb (Amy Penney) and her assistant and lover Jane Beck (Fiona Cheung), who later falls for Lucifer—appearing before good ole boy Judge Felix Popper (Gary Grossman).  

Erin Maxon is a show-stopping Lilith, with glass-fracturing voice. Davern Wright as a robotic boxer, Ara Glen-Johanson playing a cynical convicted witch, and Sora Baek, in a variety of roles, all show fine physical theater technique—as does Ragged Wing cofounder Keith Davis, a fine Lucifer, whose eyes either plead or burn, alleging it was mankind who seduced him. 

Ragged Wing’s multi-skilled performers are at their best when the going gets polyphonic, demanding tight ensemble harmonies in movement, gesture and voice. There are excellent, often delightfully funny, moments, whole episodes even, of History of the Devil, where they start to show their stuff, especially when cofounder Amy Sass’ choreography comes into its own, like the Laocoon-like daisy-chain pose the chagrined court officers are discovered in.  

But the troupe’s not entirely well-served by Barker’s play, which tends towards the univocality of the genre auteur, in thrall to its own conceptualism, sometimes more like the scheme for a sci-fi or fantasy novel, or TV pilot, than a play on a live stage. One of the old Gothic or Decadent works, which Barker would probably claim as predecessor, cut and adapted for contemporary theater (and Ragged Wing’s considerable strengths) would serve better—as Artaud’s polyphonic version of Shelley’s (and Stendhal’s) The Censi served to launch his Theater of Cruelty, certainly part of Ragged Wing’s own heritage. 

In any case, Ragged Wing is one of those local independent companies always worth seeing, their mission apparent in everything they do. And they’ve staged five very different shows since their inception—no mean feat for practitioners of such a demanding art. 

THE HISTORY OF THE DEVIL 

Presented by Ragged Wing Ensemble at 8 p.m. Fridays and Saturdays (with a special matinee at 2 p.m. Sunday, Oct. 19) through Nov. 1 at Central Stage, 5221 Central Ave. No. A1, Richmond. $15-$30. (800) 838-3006, www.raggedwing.org.

When novelist and educator Cecil Brown—longtime Berkeley resident and teacher at Bay Area colleges—was introduced for a reading and talk he gave a few weeks ago at Washington University in St. Louis, Prof. Gerald Early recalled when he was in high school in the ‘60s, “The three books that everybody just had to read were James Baldwin’s Another Country, John A. Williams’ The Man Who Cried I Am and Cecil Brown’s The Life and Loves of Mr. Jiveass Nigger.” 

Now, Brown notes, Baldwin is dead and Williams doesn’t have a major publisher. “He isn’t appreciated anymore. I’ve tried to review him, and it’s been hard to get the reviews published.” 

Brown’s most celebrated book, The Life and Loves, was reissued at the beginning of this month by North Atlantic Press in Berkeley. Originally published by Farrar, Straus and Giroux in 1969 to great acclaim, Brown recalled his book’s reception: “Roger Straus was the greatest publisher in the world! There were Hollywood stars at the book party. I was on the Tonight Show, went to England ... I doubt any African American writer today would get the accolade we got in those days. It’s dead, now. No one’s interested.” 

Brown’s books continue to get published, reprinted and garner critical acclaim. His nonfiction book, Stagolee Shot Billy, published in 2005 by Harvard University Press, was praised by Time Magazine, the New York Times, the Guardian (U.K.) and in the Times Literary Supplement. The Life and Loves has been reprinted multiple times in Europe, Germany in particular (“But I don’t usually hear about it till later!”). 

With the Stagolee book, “I found the nonfiction material so interesting, I novelized it.” I, Stagolee was published in 2006, and “there’s the possibility of a film. Samuel Jackson read and liked it.”  

Brown, who also works with the UC Berkeley Department of Information, developing digital education video games for 3- to 5-year-olds, has made a video game based on the Stagolee tales for 13- to 15-year-olds, “for drop-outs,” he said. “Forty-eight percent of Alameda County’s young black men drop out of high school. Violence is such a waste of time. They need recourse to understand the structure of racism they’re involved in. And it would behoove us to find out what in playing video games, not reading—which about the same percentage doesn’t do—is a reaction to the system making learning boring, penalizing African Americans for a different understanding of what is play, what is work.” 

Brown was born in rural North Carolina. After he and several other students were lent a coach’s car to drive to an SAT test center, Brown received a scholarship to A & T College in Greensboro, N.C.  

As a college freshman, he was influenced by an event: when Jesse Jackson (“He was in a fraternity”) came in late to class, he answered the teacher’s query of where he was by “saying he’d been across the street at a sit-in at the Woolworth’s five-and-dime, protesting that black people couldn’t eat at the lunch counter there. The teacher turned to us and said ‘the rest of you should be doing that, too.’ I was witness to that history when it really got started, and never forgot how students could influence a country’s history.” 

Brown later attended Columbia, publishing stories in the student magazine. “I was writing everything I could; I always wanted to be a novelist. I went to Europe for the first time. None of this had been in the cards for me. I’d been a plowboy. After Columbia, it gave me such confidence ... worldly classmates inviting me to Nantucket—‘Meet my mom, she’s a painter’—I’d never have been accepted in such homes in Mississippi or Georgia, and I came in the front door with their kid, treated as an equal ... . 

“That’s why I feel such pain about the avenues closed to young blacks today. Young guys don’t get to hang out like that, meeting sculptors and musicians like I did, people thinking about what to do with their life—and so did I.” 

At Columbia, Brown was encouraged to write “by LeRoi Jones, now Amiri Baraka, who gave me a tip for an agent, and Seymour Krim, who sent me to Evergreen Review.”  

Brown later attended the University of Chicago, where he witnessed “the eruption of the Democratic National Convention, and when Martin Luther King was assassinated, the rioting on the South Side that spilled over into Hyde Park.”  

But it was with a recommendation from his Columbia teacher Mark Van Doren’s son Charles that Brown drove west “in a Cadillac, with a couple other students” to interview for a teaching job at Modesto Junior College. 

“I took one look at Modesto and could not even stop the car. We drove straight to Berkeley,” he said. 

Brown ended up teaching at Merritt College “and ran into Huey Newton and Bobby Seale, students organizing their own curriculum—and the Black Panther Party.” Brown staged his own plays at Merritt, where a UC Berkeley professor saw them and told him he should be teaching in the UC English Department. 

At UC, Brown met Leonard Michaels, Al Young, Ishmael Reed and David Henderson—“And I added Claude Brown and Richard Pryor,” who was performing at the Mandrake in Berkeley. Brown later followed “when Richard went down to Hollywood, working with him, being his full-time running buddy, day-to-day,” before “taking off to Berlin,” where Brown got involved in filmmaking.  

Asked what influence Pryor had on him—or vice versa—Brown replied, “I had such admiration for Richard. Taj Mahal claims Richard got all these nuances he needed for his characters from me, being from the South, Richard being from the Midwest. Like Taj, living next door to blues players, he paid attention. He says Richard did that with me.” 

(As Brown was explaining this, his cellphone rang. It was Taj Mahal, who, asked to amplify, said: “I bought a four DVD set of Richard Pryor, and said, ‘Wait a second! This cat’s from Peoria, Ill., and sounds like he’s Down South—like Cecil Brown.’ You meet Cecil and see how much Richard got from him for his characters.”)  

Brown’s Hollywood experiences found their way into a 1982 novel, Days Without Weather. Currently, his biography of Pryor, Kiss My Rich, Happy, Black Ass (a remark Pryor famously made to gay leaders, with Brown a witness) is making the rounds of publishers. 

Brown returned to Berkeley in the late ’80s to teach, gaining his Ph.D. in African American Studies, Folklore and Narrative in 1993. Currently, he’s preparing a class at Stanford: Classics 130: From Homer to Hip-Hop, on the oral tradition, studying “Greeks and Griots.”  

He said he believes that “with their feet in the oral tradition, African Americans anticipated the digital age.” 

“No Child Left Behind is the negative onslaught of the world Marshall McLuhan predicted in his famous Playboy interview in 1966, when he described the conflict between the white world versus the black as rooted in envy of a life left out for whites—and that blacks should maintain their connection with the Africa within,” Brown said. “I want to remind the academic world—and certainly students—of that, and to look at what real change is.”  

Cecil Brown’s website is www.cecilbrown.net 

German Expressionism Collection 

One of the pleasures of viewing silent film is watching a nascent art form as it is invented, developed and perfected. In the 1910s and early 1920s, filmmakers experimented with the new form, attempting to harness its unique properties, its potential for drama, for humor, for surprise.  

The Germans soon proved to possess an unparalleled knack for examining the darker side of film, using lighting, set design and camerawork to exploit the medium's capacity for psychological drama.  

Kino has packaged four great films in the German Expressionism Collection, a box set that elucidates the bold inventiveness of Germany in those early years in the creation of art that celebrated its own artifice. 

Expressionism was a strong influence on American film noir, and the pleasure of the genres are similar: overwrought emotion, heightened reality, shadows and shady characters. And the films in this collection play up those qualities, creating fever-pitched realities that are certainly strange, at times demented, but always fascinating. 

The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari 

Of course, the granddaddy of all expressionist films is The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari, one of the most legendary of all silent films. It has been readily available on home video for some time; in fact, Kino has not updated their previous release of the film, but simply repackaged it for this set.  

The film would still be considered bold and experimental if it were made today, using painted, surrealistic sets and stark imagery. Far less grounded in reality than most of the films that it would inspire, Caligari is gloriously artificial in its presentation, creating a stage-bound world that bears little resemblance to the everyday world but which lures the view into a strange, hypnotic world of its own.  

Conrad Veidt played the somnambulist, establishing himself as perhaps the definitive actor of Germany's expressionist era. Werner Krauss plays the deranged Caligari with an unforgettable blend of madness, mystery and menace. 

Hands of Orlac 

Veidt and director Robert Wiene teamed up again for the The Hands of Orlac, a story that takes place in the modern world but is no less nightmarish and unreal. Veidt plays Orlac, a concert pianist whose hands must be amputated after a train crash. A crafty surgeon is able to replace Orlac's hands with those of another man. Soon after, his father is murdered, and fingerprint evidence points toward Orlac, sending his fragile psyche into even greater decline as he begins to unravel the mystery of the origin of his new hands. Wiene and Veidt ratchet up the psychoanalytic elements in bringing the horrors of the plot to life. 

Secrets of a Soul 

G.W. Pabst's Secrets of a Soul is a more overt attempt to capture the essence of psychoanalysis on the screen. Though the film is fairly explicit in its delineation of the dark forces at play in the character's subconscious, with intertitles that fully address his violent urges, there is still much that is left unspoken. Issues of impotence, sterility and sexual dysfunction are for the most part left unspoken, but are suggested through imagery and gesture.  

The dream sequences are lurid and convincing, expressing the disjointed logic of feverish nightmares. The imagery is powerful and stark, beautiful in its own right as surrealist fantasy, but still revealed as logical in the end.  

Warning Shadows 

Warning Shadows is a purely visual film, with no intertitles to convey plot or dialogue—beyond the opening credits, that is, which feature each actor appearing on a proscenium, introduced along with his shadow, for shadows prove to be characters as much as the people who cast them.  

The story concerns a woman and her husband. They are hosting a dinner party of her suitors. A traveling entertainer crashes the party and proceeds to put on a show of shadow puppetry, a show that plumbs the depths of each character’s consciousness. The shadows take on the semblance of reality, acting out a passion play that, in the best Expressionist fashion, gives shape to the tensions and desires in the minds of the party’s hosts and their guests. The husband, overcome with jealous rage, seeks revenge on his flirtatious wife and her ardent suitors, while her beauty and careless allure lead the men to destroy first her and then each other.  

The film was photographed by Fritz Arno Wagner, the famed cinematographer who also shot F.W. Murnau’s Nosferatu and Fritz Lang’s M.  

Houdini: Movie Star 

Harry Houdini must have seemed an obvious candidate for movie stardom. Famous as a vaudeville performer and as a daredevil stuntman, he was a born showman, charismatic, daring and bold.  

Though limited as an actor, his appeal, then as now, is readily apparent. Short and rugged with piercing eyes, he comes across as an earlier generation's version of Edward G. Robinson, handsome in an unlikely way, tough and scowling, but able to convey a certain benevolent humor and grace.  

Kino has released a three-disc set of all that remains of Houdini's brief movie career. The set includes three feature films, a surviving fragment from a fourth, and nearly four hours of installments from a 1919 serial. Bonus features include newsreel footage of many of Houdini's straitjacket escapes, usually while dangling upside down over a public street before thousands of onlookers.  

But the main attractions here are Houdini's acting performances. The set starts with the 15-part serial, The Master Mystery (1919, 238 minutes), an everything-but-the-kitchen-sink action adventure in which Houdini, as Quentin Locke, battles a corrupt patents company involved in anti-trust practices, along the way battling a robot, rescuing a beautiful dame, endureing a string of torture techniques, and escaping from an array of deadly devices. The enormous success of the serial led to a contract with Famous Players Lasky/Parmount Pictures, which resulted in two feature films.  

Terror Island (1920, 55 minutes), the most lavish of the Houdini films, sees the magician playing an inventor whose state-of-the-art submarine is called into duty to salvage both treasure and romance. The film again affords Houdini the opportunity to display his talent for the escape, as well as his ability to hold his breath underwater for extended periods as he passes in and out of the submarine to stage various rescues and assaults on nefarious foes. 

During the making of The Grim Game (1919), two planes collided in mid-air, leading the producers to re-write the script around the material. The only fragment that survives of the film shows this accident, and though the filmmakers claimed that Houdini himself was hanging from the plane and survived the accident, the editing and re-shoots that sustained the illusion are hardly any more convincing today than they were then. 

After fulfilling his Hollywood contract, Houdini returned to New York to start his own production company, the Houdini Picture Corporation, producing and starring in two more films. The Man from Beyond (1922. 84 minutes) allowed Houdini to indulge his interest in reincarnation, playing a man unfrozen after 100 years who finds his true love of 1820 is alive and well in another woman's body in 1920. In Haldane of the Secret Service (1923, 84 minutes), his final film, Houdini stars as an undercover agent infiltrating a counterfeiting operation in New York's shadowy Chinatown. 

Despite his fame, Houdini's acting career was not a success. It turned out that the art of the escape required a flesh-and-blood performance to hold an audience's attention; cinema, with all its sleight-of-hand editing and shifting camera angles, robbed Houdini's stunts of their veracity and sense of danger. If an audience wanted grace and daring and swashbuckling charm, they had Douglas Fairbanks; if they wanted dangerous stunt work, cinematically presented and with no editing gimmickry, they had Buster Keaton. Though Houdini was one of the most famous men of his time, his fans preferred to see him not larger than life on the big screen, but on the stage, life size and all the more compelling for that fact that he was real.

Cooper-Moore, free jazz pianist, multi-instrumentalist and composer extraordinaire, makes his first Bay Area appearance in 37 years at 8 p.m. Tuesday at Mama Calizo’s Voice Factory, 1519 St., San Francisco (moved from the Noodle Factory in Oakland) on his solo tour, “Old & New Paths,” featuring his handmade instruments. A cohort of William Parker, who has played at the behest of Sonny Rollins, Cooper-Moore will play “a stew of Gospel, Bop, Free Jazz, Blues and Roots Music”—and tell stories. (There’s a grand piano on site, too.) David Gitin, KPFA music programmer of the 1960s and ‘70s, commented, “His appearances are so rare, they’re excited when he plays in New York,” where he lives. $12/$15. For tickets, contact Brown Paper Tickets at brownpapertickets.com or (800) 838-3006. For information on the show, call 547-8932 or see aumfidelity.com/cooper-moore.

A friend of mine has a bass guitarist living upstairs who has been working out the chords to “In a Gadda Da Vida” for the past 12 years. My friend is a patient person but she’s begun to exhibit something of a tic and often looks dolefully into space for long periods of time, returning from her reverie only when the music has stopped for some short spell. 

Recently she’s begun asking a lot of unwholesome questions about firearms and those CIA poisoning tricks they used to talk about in the sixties (probably while “In a Gadda Da Vida” was playing in the background).  

I have suggested that she might want to try some sound control techniques in the building before moving on to anything more rash. Noise conduction problems can be complex and modifications designed to reduce sound in buildings can be expensive, but if that cute little freckly kid from next door has grown into a 17- year-old drummer in a band called TRåMA, you might also benefit from some of these notions. So here goes. 

If your problem is noise transmitted between the upstairs neighbor’s floor and your ceiling, one of the best techniques is to replace the existing ceiling with new a layer of drywall (I’d use 5/8”), suspended by resilient channel (often called rezi channel). These are Z-shaped pieces of metal that come in 10-foot lengths that are screwed onto the bare rafters of a ceiling (or over an existing ceiling), then covered with a layer of drywall (aka sheetrock).  

To make these, a long strip of metal is taken and folded twice along its length, forming a strong bar that forms a tiny Z-shape when viewed from one end. 

The channels are installed perpendicular to the floor joists so that they run across the bottom edge of the joists from one wall to the other. The new drywall ceiling is then attached to the metal strips, not to the ceiling above. (The “Z” shape of the channel also gives the drywall a bit of bounce.) The result is that your ceiling will transmit far less of the sound emanating through the musician’s or tap dancer’s floor above. 

If you have plenty of ceiling height, it’s fine to leave the first layer of drywall, although testing by National Research Council Canada suggests that this is not a good technique. (Hmm. Is it fine, or not a good technique? If not good, might as well not mention?)  

If you like, you can enhance this methodology in several ways. You can insulate the space between the joists using common insulation. You can install Sound Board, a thick fibrous cellulose matting. You can also install this material across the bottom of the joists prior to installing the resilient channel but remember that you’ll need longer screws. It’s a good idea to use 5/8” drywall on the ceiling if you want to really kill those bad vibes. 

For the really serious isolationist, cement tile-backer can be used as a part of such an assembly, although this is probably more effective for high frequencies than for low ones. You’ll want to remember to bring the launch codes with you when you lock down for the night. 

Sound channel, insulation, or additional layers of drywall can also be used to subdue noise that emanates through walls, but the best method in my opinion involves building one of two types of party walls. My favorite involves actually rebuilding the wall between the two spaces. You build a wall with two sets of studs (upright 2x4’s) on a 2x6 bottom and top member. One set of 2x4’s is built to one edge of the 2x6 facing one room. The other set is built to the other edge facing the other room. The uprights alternate along the length of the 2x6 plates or sills, each one touching only one side of the wall. 

So when you hit the wall on one side (or strike a power chord), one set of 2x4’s will vibrate but not the opposing set of 2x4’s and drywall finish. Although this technique is quite helpful for loud noises and banging, it’s ideal demonstration is in virtually eliminating normal talking and the other sounds of life. 

I used this technique in a duplex in Richmond many years ago and when we were done, we could holler on one side and hear virtually nothing on the other. Great for privacy during marital disputes or intimate moments. 

The second type of party wall is simply a second wall built almost against the first with one or two layers of drywall between. This eats up another few inches of room space and seems less efficient than the staggered technique. Nonetheless, it is simple and can be added to an existing wall while the previous method requires building a new wall from scratch. 

For sounds next door (like TråMA’s weekly band practice), there’s nothing quite like double-glazed windows. It’s impressive how well these advents of modern building science inhibit sound. About 12 years ago, I was inspecting a small house built right beside the 580 freeway. It was up a small hill so that you looked right over onto the freeway and the hill acted like an amphitheater, capturing and funneling the sound right toward the house. Outside the house, the freeway noise drowned our best efforts at conversation, but when we walked into the house—recently fitted with these new-fangled windows—the sound was little more than a distant hum.  

This works equally well for neighbors who fight, dogs that bark all night or whatever drives you to and beyond distraction. If you work nights and sleep days, double-paned windows just might keep you sane. 

I should also mention that carpeting with thick padding is a great sound absorber and requires no significant alteration to the building. 

I’ll add one last measure for the band members. If you live at Mom’s or if the police have now been at your house more than four times, you might try the following technique. 

Drum kits can be placed on a floating floor or even in a hanging room-within-a-room.  

You can build a floor that sits above the primary floor in the room and either place it on rubber isolation bumpers or suspend it from the ceiling by use of cables or threaded rod. The secondary floor need be suspended only a fraction of an inch above the original floor to prevent transmission of the vibration from a drum kit. The hangers (rods or cables) can employ isolation devices like the one mentioned above to connect them to the ceiling.  

Bumpers can be found at industrial supply stores. I suggested these bumpers when my 0steopath and friend, Catherine, was being assaulted by the vibration from a restaurant ventilation system that ran upward through her offices. The intensely close attention required to study her patient’s sounds and movements were simply too hard to achieve with the entire building bombilating like a cicada. This simple and inexpensive method worked wonders by isolating the rooftop ventilator and eased tensions between the resonating parties. 

This was by no means a complete list of sound reduction techniques but, hopefully, one or more of these techniques will get you and your neighbors started on the road to concord.  

So, in closing, if the person you’re sharing the duplex with starts a Herman’s Hermits cover band, remember, don’t get mad; don’t get even; just get resilient. 

High on Panoramic Hill, overlooking Berkeley and the bay, stands a pre-World War II house that became both a public architectural spectacle and a secret aerie. Next week, a scholar offers an illustrated lecture exploring some of the hidden dimensions and character of this striking structure. 

The Weston Havens House, designed by Harwell Hamilton Harris and completed in 1941, has gained increasingly iconic status among fans of modern architecture since it passed into the ownership of the University of California following the death of its owner earlier this decade.  

Nearly invisible from the street on which it stands, seen from below it projects from the hillside with tall window walls facing the view and a dramatic “V” form to the roof. Intensely modern for its time, it was the purpose-built home of one of Berkeley’s more wealthy and enigmatic native sons.  

In recent years, occasional tours have offered the public brief peeks inside the house where the décor and furnishings seem frozen in time from two generations past.  

The talk on the Havens House, provocatively entitled “Sex and the Single Building” will be given the evening of Wednesday, Oct. 15, by Professor Annmarie Adams.  

Adams, a visiting scholar who taught an architecture seminar with the same title at Berkeley last spring, will analyze the social dimensions and origins of the Havens House, examining it not just as an early modern design but as a product of the desires of its life-long owner, as interpreted by the designer. 

“The premise,” Adams says, “is that a concentrated focus on the plan highlights the home’s role in shaping the lived experience of real people as the negotiated social positions inflected by—among other things—gender, race, class, ethnicity, and age.” 

Adams is the William C. Macdonald Professor of Architecture at Montreal’s McGill University, and earned her Ph.D. from Berkeley. Her research concentrates on domestic architecture, hospital architecture, and “gendered space”—that is, the way that the social and cultural roles of men and women influence the way buildings are designed and put to use. 

In spring 2008, she was the first scholar-in-residence at Berkeley for the Arcus Endowment, a gift-funded program in the College of Environmental Design which “seeks to foster an awareness of Lesbian/Gay/Bisexual/Transgender/Queer communities in the history of architecture, landscape architecture, urban planning, and the built environment disciplines.” 

The Weston Havens house proves a perfect analytical subject for the sort of scholarship that interests Adams. It was the home of a wealthy, well-traveled, lifelong bachelor, built specifically to his tastes, with features such as a secluded on-site badminton court, magnificent bay views that could be enjoyed in complete privacy, and a kitchen concealed behind a screen painted with a map of the world. 

This was clearly a home built entirely to the fixed tastes of a man who could afford to live as he wished, at least behind walls. 

There’s a dearth of detailed biographical information about Havens. Despite that fact that he grew up in Berkeley and had his home—or, at least, a home—here for almost a century, he seems to have kept a very low profile. 

“I think he just enjoyed socializing and traveling,” says Anthony Bruce, Executive Director of the Berkeley Architectural Heritage Association, whose family would occasionally cross paths with Havens shopping at the Star Grocery on Claremont. “He always seemed like a mysterious legend to me.” 

Havens appears to have been carefully reclusive with all but a close circle of friends. “I lived next door to him for 50 years and I never saw the interior of that house,” Doris Maslach once told me. She and her husband George, later dean of engineering and a vice chancellor at UC Berkeley, built their own modernist home adjacent to Havens on Panoramic Hill. 

Haven’s father, John Weston Havens was the nephew of Francis Kittredge Shattuck, one of Berkeley’s early American Era settlers and major landowners. According to writer Daniella Thompson, who described the house for the 2005 Berkeley Architectural Heritage Association Panoramic Hill House tour, “the childless Shattuck invited his nephew to live with him in Berkeley and made him his heir. John’s only child was John Weston Havens, Jr.” 

Reportedly born in the family mansion on eponymous Shattuck Avenue, downtown, Havens lost his mother at a young age. He grew up with his father and servants in a large home at 2631 Benvenue Ave. 

Bruce says his own mother grew up across the street and was friends with the Havens governess. Havens lived a privileged life, driven to and from school by a private chauffeur. He later attended UC Berkeley. 

He appears to have pursued adult life in a pleasant way, traveling, collecting, and socializing, supported by income from the extensive Shattuck investments and property holdings. Bruce says Havens seems to have divided his time between Berkeley and Santa Barbara, as well as traveling extensively. 

In the late 1930s, Thompson writes, “following a trip to Europe, where he purchased modern furniture by Alvar Aalto, Bruno Mathsson, and other Scandinavian designers, Havens arranged for a meeting” with Harwell Hamilton Harris. 

“He was collecting modern furniture and he needed a house for it,” Bruce surmises. Havens, then living at the foot of Panoramic Hill in the celebrated brown shingle Rieber House, showed Harris a steep lot he had purchased high on the slope. The house that Harris would later call “Havens Above” was the result. 

Havens is recalled by some short descriptions as an art “patron”—a broadly elusive term—but I couldn’t find any references to leadership or prominence in local cultural causes, clubs, organizations, or activities.  

Havens did commission one visible public philanthropy in Berkeley; a series of fountains in the middle of Shattuck Avenue, downtown, also designed by Hamilton Harwell Harris. The “Havens Fountains” survived only a few years until destroyed by construction of the underground BART tube.  

After he died in 2001, the liquidation and dispersal of his estate—to Stanford, the University of California, and a new Weston Havens Foundation that endows medical and scientific research—sent ripples through Berkeley’s propertied world. I can think of at least three local development and land use controversies that resulted from sale and/or development of former Havens properties. 

What about his private life? Adams describes him as “purportedly gay,” and that’s certainly the persistent impression and rumor. Havens grew up in an era when almost any gay man would have prudently remained very private and discreet. 

“He supposedly always had a ‘steady girlfriend’,” Bruce says, but wonders whether that was a social front of convenience for the man who remained unmarried. A collateral relative once told Bruce, “He’s my own cousin and I don’t know.”  

With wealth and leisure he would have been able to organize his life to avoid notice and maximize privacy. The house, Adams will explain, reflects that desire. She calls it “secret architecture … all about discreet obstacles,” a structure in which “the sleeping spaces were opaque and controlled (while) the house was also a carefully choreographed public spectacle.”  

Screened from the street by a high fence and entered across a “V” shaped bridge with sidewalls that block sightlines down onto the property, the Havens House opens itself only to the magnificent western view.  

It also seems clearly built for a bachelor. The sleeping quarters read as a series of master bedroom spaces, rather than the traditionally hierarchy of rooms for parents and children. Adams will draw comparisons to the internal arrangements of other famous modern era homes elsewhere in the country—some built for gay clients—as well as a house built earlier in the century in Berkeley for two women doctors who were apparently a couple. 

The lecture includes numerous period photographs of the house—which was extensively documented for magazine articles—and draws on correspondence of Harris, the architect, and admirers who visited Havens to see the house, and wrote to him about both their enjoyment of his home, and some of the enigmas it represented. 

The free lecture takes place from 7-8:30 p.m. at 112 Wurster Hall on the UC Berkeley campus.  

See www.ced.berkeley.edu/events and click on “Calendar” for a listing of College of Environmental Design October activities, including the Adams talk. 

Website of Professor Adams: www.mcgill.ca/architecture/faculty/adams/ 

Website of the Spring 2008 class she taught at Berkeley: web.mac.com/annmarieadams/Seminar/Arcus.html 

Arcus Endowment:  

www.ced.berkeley.edu/alumni/giving/cedcampaign/endowedchairs/arcus

THURSDAY, OCT. 9 

El Cerrito Garden Club meets at 9:30 a.m. at El Cerrito Community Center, 7007 Moeser Lane, El Cerrito. Ann Flinn from Bear Meadow Lavender will speak on everything about Grosso and Provence Lavender. Public welcome. $3. Free for members. 236-4421. www.elcerritogardenclub.org 

First 5 Alameda Community Meeting on services for local children at 6 p.m. at Beebe Memorial Cathedral, 3900 Telegraph Ave., Oakland. 875-2400. www.first5ecc.org 

Workshops for Healthcare Activists, and those who want to be, Single Payer Health Care/SB840 Kuehl at 7 p.m. at Hillside Church, 1422 Navellier St., El Cerrito between Portrero and Moeser Lane. 526-0972. 

Red Cross Blood Drive from 8:30 a.m. to 2:30 p.m. at Kaiser Center Lobby, 300 Lakeside Dr., Oakland. To schedule an appointment go to www.BeADonor.com 

Baby & Toddler Storytime at 10:15 and 11:15 a.m. at Kensington Library, 61 Arlington Ave. 524-3043.  

Yom Kippur Reflection and Discussion at noon at JGate, El Cerrito. RSVP to 559-8140. rabbibridget@jewishgateways.org 

Three Beats for Nothing South Mostly ancient part music for fun and practice meets every Thurs. at 10 a.m. at the South Berkeley Senior Center, Ellis at Ashby. 655-8863. asiecker@sbcglobal 

Fitness Class for 55+ at 9:15 a.m. at Jewish Community Center, 1414 Walnut St. 848-0237. 

World of Plants Tours Thurs., Sat. and Sun. at 1:30 p.m. at the UC Botanical Garden, 200 Centennial Drive. Cost is $5. 643-2755. http://botanicalgarden.berkeley.edu 

FRIDAY, OCT. 10 

“Voting Rights 2008” An informational workshop for formerly incarcerated individuals who may be eligible to vote, but are unsure whether they qualify, at 9 a.m. at Downtown Oakland One-Stop Career Center, 1212 Broadway, Oakland. 768-4402. 

City Commons Club Noon Luncheon with Detectives Cesar Melero and Darren Raffery, Berkeley Police Dept. on “Protect Yourself from Identity Theft” Luncheon at 11:45 a.m. for $14.50, speech at 12:30 p.m., at the Berkeley City Club, 2315 Durant St. For information and reservations call 524-7468. www.citycommonsclub.org  

Volunteer in Berkeley Youth Alternatives Garden Tasks may include weeding, bed preparation, sowing, transplanting, and harvesting. Meet at 10 a.m. at Berkeley Youth Alternatives Garden, Bancroft Way, between Bonar and West. 647-0709. www.byaonline.org 

“Reunification: Building Permanent Peace in Korea” A conference from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. at UC Berkeley Alumni House, Bancroft Way and Dana. Sponsored by UC Berkeley Center for Korean Studies. 642-5674. www.kpolicy.org 

Conscientious Projector Film Series “Can the Presidential Election Be Stolen Again?” followed by discussion at 7:30 p.m. at Berkeley Fellowship, Cedar and Bonita. 495-5132. www.bfuu.org 

Womensong Circle An evening of participatory singing for women at 7:15 p.m. at First Congregational Church of Berkeley, small assembly room, 2345 Channing Way at Dana. Donation $15-$20. 525-7082. 

Berkeley Women in Black weekly vigil from noon to 1 p.m. at Bancroft and Telegraph. Our focus is human rights in Palestine. 548-6310. 

Three Beats for Nothing Mostly ancient part music for fun and practice meets every Fri. at 10 a.m. at the North Berkeley Senior Center, Hearst at MLK. 655-8863.  

SATURDAY, OCT. 11 

Environmental Forum for Berkeley Candidates including mayoral and city council races at 1 p.m. at Old City Hall, 2134 MLK Jr Way. Sponsored by the Sierra Club, Northern Alameda County Group.  

Indigenous Peoples Day with Powwow and Indian Market from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. at Civic Center Park. MLK at Center St. 595-5520. ipdpowwow.org 

Fall Fruit Tasting from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. at the Berkeley Farmers’ Market, Center St. at MLK Jr Way. 548-3333. 

Habitat Hunters Using various scientific tools, find out what creatures live in which habitats, from 2 to 3:30 p.m. at Tilden Nature Center, Tilden Park. For ages 7 and up. 525-2233. 

Berkeley Path Wanderers: Old and New Emeryville Walk meet at 10 a.m. in front of Old City Hall at the intersection of Hollis and Park. 528-3246. www.berkeleypaths.org  

Berkeley Historical Society Walking Tour of the northern boundary of Berkeley and Kensington, from 10 a.m. to noon. Cost is $8-$10. For reservations and starting point call 848-0181. 

Seed Saving Conference with speakers on the Ecology Center's Bay Area Seed Interchange Library (BASIL), dietary health issues, and GMOs, from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. at the Intertribal Friendship House, 523 International Blvd., Oakland 415-370-1657. mayalencanahuat@yahoo.com 

Berkeley Garden Club Plant Sale from 9:30 a.m. to 3 p.m. at 131 Ashbury, El Cerrito. 524-7296. 

Herb Day Learn the history of the garden’s herb collection , including Chinese medicinal herbs, from 10 a.m. to noon at UC Botanical Garden, 200 Centennial Dr. A class on Chinese traditional medicine follows at 1 p.m. Registration required. Cost is $8-$20. 643-2755, ext. 03. 

Rebuilding Together Oakland Block Building Program in the Elmhurst neighborhood of East Oakland. Volunteers will work in teams to restore and rehabilitate the homes of six elderly or disabled low-income homeowners and the neighborhood school. Skilled and unskilled volunteers welcome and must be at least 14 years of age to volunteer. RSVP to 625-0316. www.rtoakland.org 

“Healthy Air Walk” Fundraiser for the American Lung Association of California at 9 a.m. at the Bandstand near 666 Bellevue in Lakeside Park, Oakland. 893-5474. http://snipurl.com/ 

HealthyAirWalk 

“Facing the Mountains: Breakthroughs to New Racial Landscapes” Workshops from noon to 6 p.m., presentations and public dialogue at 7 p.m. at First Congregational Church of Oakland, 2501 Harrison St. Sponsored by World Trust Educational Services. Cost is $25-$50. www.world-trust.org 

Bronze Casting Demonstrations at 9 and 10 p.m. at Berkeley Art Complex, 729 Heinz St. Tours of foundry at 7 p.m. 644-2735. www.artworksfoundry.com 

The East Bay Chapter of The Great War Society meets to discuss “Lawrence of Arabia- Myth & Reality” by Robert DeWard at 10:30 a.m. at Albany Veterans Hall, 1325 Portland Ave., Albany. 526-4423. 

“The New Arms Race” with Jacqueline Cabasso and Andrew Lichterman of the Western States Legal Foundation at 7 p.m. at Alameda Free Library, Conf. Room A, 1550 Oak St. at Lincoln, Alameda. Sponsored by the Alameda Public Affairs Forum. www.alamedapublicaffairsforum.org 

Free Culture Conference on open access to information, copyright law reform, and a culture free from censorship and control, from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. at International House, Piedmont Ave. at Bancroft. conference.freeculture.org 

Bicycle Safety Class from 2 to 5 p.m. at Crosstown Community Center, 1303 High St., Alameda. 548-7433.  

Berkeley Juggling and Unicycle Festival Sat. and Sun. from 9 a.m. to 10 p.m. at King Middle School, 1781 Rose St. Includes workshops and performances. For details see www.berkeleyjuggling.org/festival 

Yongmudo Championship, sponsored by the UC Martial Arts Program, beginning at 8 a.m. at the RSF, 2301 Bancroft Way. Cost is $3-$5. 642-3268. 

Red Cross Blood Drive from 8 a.m. to 1 p.m. at Corpus Christi Church Gym, 322 St. James Dr., Piedmont. To schedule an appointment go to www.BeADonor.com 

Preschool Storytime, for ages 3-5, at 11 a.m. at Albany Library, 1247 Marin Ave. 526-3720, ext. 17. 

Introduction to the Alexander Technique at 10 a.m. at the Berkeley Public Library, 2090 Kittredge St. RSVP to 528-3109. amira.alvarez@gmail.com 

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

Around the World Tour of Plants at 1:30 p.m., Thurs., Sat. and Sun. at UC Botanical Garden, 200 Centennial Drive. 643-2755. http://botanicalgarden.berkeley.edu 

The Berkeley Lawn Bowling Club provides free instruction every Wed. and Sat. at 10:30 a.m. at 2270 Acton St. 841-2174.  

SUNDAY, OCT. 12 

Berkeley Juggling and Unicycle Festival from 9 a.m. to 10 p.m. at King Middle School, 1781 Rose St. Includes workshops and performances. For details see www.berkeleyjuggling.org/festival 

Raising Chickens Learn which breeds are best for your situation, how to deal with predators, whether your chickens can free-range, and other chicken/duck lore, from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. at EcoHouse, 1305 Hopkins St., enter via garden entrance on Peralta. Cost is $15, no one turned away for lack of funds. 548-2220, ext. 242. ecohouse@ecologycenter.org 

Toddler Nature Walk for ages 2-3 and their care-givers, to discover spiders, rolly-pollies, fall colors and more, from 2 to 4 p.m. at Tilden Nature Center, Tilden Park. 525-2233. 

Little Farm Open House Come grind some corn to feed the chickens, pet a bunny or groom a goat, from 2 to 4 p.m. at the Little Farm at Tilden Park. 525-2233. 

Cool Schools Global Warming Campaign for middle and high school students to learn how to take action against global warming in their schools and communities, from 2 to 4 p.m. at Berkeley Public Library, 2090 Kittredge. R SVP requested. 704-4030. caroline@earthteam.net, www.earthteam.net 

Least Tern Habitat Restoration Help prepare habitat for the California Least Tern nesting season with Friends of the Alameda Wildlife Refuge. Meet at 9 a.m. at the main refuge gate, northwest corner of former Alameda Naval Air Station. RSVP required. 522-0601. www.ggnrabigyear.org 

Introduction to Fly-Fishing Learn casting at Lake Anza followed by classroom instruction on knots, fly selection, reading the water, and more. From 7 a.m. to 1 p.m. in Tilden Park. Cost is $60-$66. Registration required. 1-888-EBPARKS. 

“Artists for Change” Garden Reception and Fundraiser for Barack Obama from 2 to 5 p.m. at 449 49th St. Cost is $25-$40. RSVP to 655-3841. 

All Italian Car and Motorcycle Show Benefit for Alameda Special Olympics, from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. at Lincoln Middle School, 1250 Fernside Blvd., Alameda. Cost is $5.  

Crabby Chefs Seafood Competition from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. at Spenger’s Fresh Fish Grotto, 1919 Fourth St. 845-7771. 

Jewish Coalition for Literacy Training for volunteer tutors from 10 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. at 300 Grand, Oakland. Register at www.jclread.org 

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 

Berkeley Chess Club meets every Sun. at 7 p.m. at the Hillside School, 1581 Le Roy Ave. 843-0150. 

Tibetan Buddhism with Betsy Damon on “Inside Tibet” at 6 p.m. at the Tibetan Nyingma Institute, 1815 Highland Pl. 809-1000. www.nyingmainstitute.com 

Sew Your Own Open Studio Come learn to use our industrial and domestic machines, or work on your own projects, from 4 to 8 p.m. at 84 Bolivar Dr., Aquatic Park. Also on Fri. from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. Cost is $5 per hour. 644-2577. www.watersideworkshops.org 

MONDAY, OCT. 13 

First 5 Alameda Community Meeting on services for local children at 1 p.m. at Cesar Chavez Library, 3301 E. 12th St., Oakland. 875-2400. www.first5ecc.org 

“It Came from Berkeley: How Berkeley Changed the World” with author David Weinstein at 7 p.m. at Kensington Library, 61 Arlington Ave. 524-3043. 

Naomi Wolf and Daniel Ellsberg “Give Me Liberty” at 7:30 p.m. at First Congregational Church of Berkeley, 2345 Channing Way. Tickets are $12-$15. 848-3696. 

“Why Africa Goes Hungry” with Raj Patel, author of “Stuffed and Starved” at 6:30 p.m. at First Congregational Church of Oakland, 2501 Harrison St. Sponsored by Priority Africa Network. 238-8080. www.priorityafrica.org 

“Physics 101: What Our Next President Needs to Know” with Rich Muller, author of “Physics for Future Presidents” at 5:30 p.m. at Berkeley Rep, Thrust Stage, 2025 Addison St. Free. Sponsored by Berkeley Lab Friends of Science. 486-7292. 

Indigenous Peoples’ Day Activities for children including making dream-catchers, stringing beads, and listening to Native American stories, from 9:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. at Habitot, 2065 Kittredge St. 647-1111. www.habitot.org 

World Affairs/Politics Discussion Group, for people 60 years and over, meets at 9:45 a.m. at Albany Senior Center, 846 Masonic Ave, Albany. Cost is $3.  

Berkeley CopWatch organizational meeting at 8 p.m. at 2022 Blake St. Join us to work on current issues around police misconduct. Volunteers needed. For information call 548-0425. 

Dragonboating Year round classes at the Berkeley Marina, Dock M. Meets Mon, Wed., Thurs. at 6 p.m. Sat. at 10:30 a.m. For details see www.dragonmax.org 

Free Boatbuilding Classes for Youth Mon.-Wed. from 3 to 7 p.m. at Berkeley Boathouse, 84 Bolivar Dr., Aquatic Park. Classes cover woodworking, boatbuilding, and boat repair. 644-2577. www.watersideworkshops.org 

TUESDAY, OCT. 14 

Berkeley City Council District 4 Candidates Forum at 7 p.m. at Lutheran Church of the Cross, 1744 University Ave., between McGee and Grant. 

Tuesdays for the Birds Tranquil bird walks in local parklands, led by Bethany Facendini, from 7 to 9:30 a.m. Today we will visit Leona Canyon Regional Open Space Preserve. Call for meeting place and if you need to borrow binoculars. 525-2233. 

Fall Fruit Tasting from 2 to 7 p.m. at the Berkeley Farmers’ Market, Derby St. at MLK Jr Way. 548-3333. 

New Deal Film Festival “Artists at Work: WPA Public Art” at 1 p.m. at North Berkeley Senior Center, 1901 Hearst. Sponsored by the Berkeley Gray Panthers. 548-9696. 

“Successes and Failures in California Water Regulation” with Gary Wolff, Vice-chair California State Water Resources Control Board at 5:30 p.m. at 112 Wurster, UC campus. 642-2666, waterarc@library.berkeley.edu, www.lib.berkeley.edu/WRCA/ccow.html 

Red Cross Blood Services Volunteer Orientation from 6 to 8 p.m. at 6230 Claremont Ave., Oakland. Registration required. 594-5165. 

Family Storytime at 7 p.m. at Kensington Library, 61 Arlington Ave. 524-3043.  

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. 

End the Occupation Vigil every Tues. at noon at Oakland Federal Bldg., 1301 Clay St. www.epicalc.org 

Caribbean Rhythms Dance Class begins at 5:30 p.m. at Redwood Gardens, 2951 Derby St., and meets every Tues. eve. Donations accepted for Community Rhythms Scholarship Fund. 548-9840. 

Street Level Cycles Community Bike Program Come use our tools as well as receive help with performing repairs free of charge. Youth classes available. Tues., Thurs., and Sat. from 2 to 6 p.m. at at 84 Bolivar Dr., Aquatic Park. 644-2577. www.watersideworkshops.org 

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

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. 

Sing-A-Long Group from 2 to 3 p.m. at the Albany Senior Center, 846 Masonic Ave., Albany. 524-9122. 

Yarn Wranglers Come knit and crochet at 6:30 p.m. at Nomad Cafe, 6500 Shattuck Ave. 595-5344. www.nomadcafe.net 

WEDNESDAY, OCT. 15 

Tilden Tots Join a nature adventure program for 3 and 4 year olds, each accompanied by an adult (grandparents welcome)! We will have our annual nature treasure hunt from 10 to 11:30 a.m. at Tilden Nature Center, Tilden Park. Cost is $6-$8. Registration required. 636-1684. 

Tilden Explorers An after-school nature adventure program for 5-7 year olds. We will go on a nature treasure hunt from 3:15 to 4:15 p.m. Cost is $6-$8. Registration required. 1-888-327-2757. 

“The Berkeley Climate Action Plan” Learn about and comment on the City's recommendations for reducing local greenhouse gas emissions at the Planning Commission, at 7 p.m. at North Berkeley Senior Center, 1901 Hearst Ave. www.BerkeleyClimateAction.org 

First 5 Alameda Community Meeting on services for local children at 6 p.m. at Eastmont Town Center, 7200 Bancroft Ave., Oakland. 875-2400. www.first5ecc.org 

“The Fourth World War” A documentary on the war on terror, at 7:30 p.m. at Humanist Hall, 390 27th St., Oakland. Donation $5. www.Humanist Hall.org 

“Engage Her: Getting Minority Women of Lead and Vote” A documentary by Mable Yee and Marie Victoria Ponce at 4 p.m. at Room 2050 Valley Life Sciences Bldg., UC campus. Discussion follows. 642-5254. 

Albany Reads Community reading of “Snow Mountain Passage” by James D. Houston about the Donner Party. Book discussion at 7 p.m. at Albany Library, 1247 Marin Ave. For other related events, and for a copy of the book call 526-3720. 

“Hiking the Pacific Crest Trail: A Family Adventure” at 7 p.m. at REI, 1338 San Pablo Ave. 527-4140. 

Berkeley Retired Teachers General Meeting at 12:30 p.m. at Northbrae Community Church, 941 The Alameda. 526-3805. 

Presidential Debate #3 at 6 p.m. in the JCCEB theater, 1414 Walnut St. Discussion follows. 848-0237. 

Berkeley Simplicity Forum meets to discuss the path to simplicity at 6:30 p.m. at the Ecology Center, 2530 San Pablo Ave.  

Radical Town Hall Meeting on the Financial Crises An open discussion on the financial meltdown from an anti-capitalist, non-sectarian perspective at 7 p.m. at the Niebyl-Proctor Marxist Library, 6501 Telegraph Ave., Oakland. 595-7417. npml@marxistlibr.org 

Reel Rock Film Tour Climbing adventure films at 8 p.m. at Pyramid Alehouse Boardroom. Tickets are $12-$14. www.reelrocktour.com 

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. 548-9840. 

Jump Start Entrepreneurs Network meets at 8 a.m. at Cuppa Tea, 3202 College Ave. at Alcactraz. Cost is $5-$6, includes breakfast. 899-8242. www.jumpstartten.com 

Theraputic Recreation at the Berkeley Warm Pool, Wed. at 3:30 p.m. and Sat. at 10 a.m. at the Berkeley Warm Pool, 2245 Milvia St. Cost is $4-$5. Bring a towel. 632-9369. 

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 

Family Sing-Along for toddlers, pre-schoolers and their families at 4:30 p.m. at the Albany Library, 1247 Marin Ave. 526-3720. 

Teen Chess Club from 3:30 to 5:30 p.m. at the North Branch Library, 1170 The Alameda at Hopkins. 981-6133. 

Morning Meditation Every Mon., Wed., and Fri. at 7:45 a.m. at Rudramandir, 830 Bancroft Way at 6th. 486-8700. 

Berkeley CopWatch Drop-in office hours from 6 to 8 p.m. at 2022 Blake St. 548-0425. 

Stitch ‘n Bitch at 6:30 p.m. at Caffe Trieste, 2500 San Pablo Ave., at Dwight. 548-5198.  

THURSDAY, OCT. 16 

"Preservation Works" A panel discussion on the benefits of architectural preservation for a city at 7:30 p.m. at The Hillside Club, Cedar St. at Arch. Sponsored by Berkeley Architectural Heritage Association. Free. 841-2242. www.berkeleyheritage.com 

Bay Area National Latino AIDS Awareness Day with music and food, from 6 to 9 p.m. at La Peña. 849-2568. www.lapena.org 

LeConte Neighborhood Association Meeting with Mayoral candidate Shirley Dean at 7:30 p.m. at the LeConte School, Russell St. entrance. Other agenda items include a mini-park for Oregon/Fulton, anti-blight procedures, better traffic control. karlreeh@aol.com  

First 5 Alameda Community Meeting on services for local children at 6 p.m. at Alameda Behavioral Health Care Services, 2000 Embarcadero, Oakland. 875-2400. www.first5ecc.org 

Workshops for Healthcare Activists, and those who want to be, Single Payer Health Care/SB840 Kuehl at 7 p.m. at Hillside Church, 1422 Navellier St., El Cerrito between Portrero and Moeser Lane. 526-0972. 

University of California Press Annual Sidewalk Book Sale with hundreds of new and slightly scuffed books from the warehouse at a significant discount from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. at 2120 Berkeley Way, one block north of University, between Shattuck and Oxford. www.ucpress.edu 

“Starved for Attention: The Neglected Crisis of Childhood Malnutrition” with Dr. Buddhima Lokuge at 5:30 p.m. at Berdahl Auditorium, Stanley Hall, UC campus. Presented by Doctors Without Borders. 

College Night for High School Students to meet college representatives from 6 to 8 p.m. at the College of Alameda Gymnasium, Building G, 555 Ralph Appezzato Memorial Parkway, Alameda. 337-2314. 

“Voices of Courage” Family Violence Law Center’s Annual Dinner at 6 p.m. at Greek Orthodox Cathedral, Oakland. Tickets are $100. RSVP to christina@fvlc.org 

Hall of Health Educator's Open House with Eileen Murray, Children's Hospital & Research Center on “Sickle Cell Disease and Trait” at 4 p.m. at Hall of Health, 2230 Shattuck Ave. (lower level). RSVP to 705-8527. 

LiveTalk@CPS with Robert W. Fuller, former president of Oberlin College on “Overcoming the Abuse of Rank” at 7 p.m. at College Prepatory School, Buttner Auditorium, 6100 Broadway. Tickets are $5-$15 at the door. www.college-prep.org/livetalk 

“Turkey Vultures: Fact vs. Fiction” with Douglas Long, chief curator of Natural Sciences, at 12:30 p.m. at Oakland Museum of California, 1000 Oak St., Oakland. 238-2200. www.museumca.org 

Berkeley School Volunteers Orientation from 3:30 to 4:30 p.m. at 1835 Allston Way. Come learn about volunteer opportunities. Bring photo ID and two references. 644-8833. 

Reel Rock Film Tour Climbing adventure films at 8 p.m. at Pyramid Alehouse Boardroom. Tickets are $12-$14. www.reelrocktour.com 

Three Beats for Nothing South Mostly ancient part music for fun and practice meets every Thurs. at 10 a.m. at the South Berkeley Senior Center, Ellis at Ashby. 655-8863. asiecker@sbcglobal 

Avatar Metaphysical Toastmasters Club at 6:45 p.m. at Spud’s Pizza , 3290 Adeline at Alcatraz. namaste@avatar.freetoasthost.info  

Fitness Class for 55+ at 9:15 a.m. at Jewish Community Center, 1414 Walnut St. 848-0237. 

World of Plants Tours Thurs., Sat. and Sun. at 1:30 p.m. at the UC Botanical Garden, 200 Centennial Drive. Cost is $5. 643-2755. http://botanicalgarden.berkeley.edu 

FRIDAY, OCT. 17 

City Commons Club Noon Luncheon with Linda Swift on “Climate Change: A Primer” Luncheon at 11:45 a.m. for $14.50, speech at 12:30 p.m., at the Berkeley City Club, 2315 Durant St. For information and reservations call 524-7468. www.citycommonsclub.org 

Iraq Moratorium Day and Vigil to Protest the War from 2 to 4 p.m. at the corners of University & Acton. Sponsored by Strawberry Creek Lodge Tenant’s Assoc & Berkeley-East Bay Gray Panthers. 548-9696. 

Berkeley Women in Black weekly vigil from noon to 1 p.m. at Bancroft and Telegraph. Our focus is human rights in Palestine. 548-6310. 

Three Beats for Nothing Mostly ancient part music for fun and practice meets every Fri. at 10 a.m. at the North Berkeley Senior Center, Hearst at MLK. 655-8863. asiecker@sbcglobal 

SATURDAY, OCT. 18 

Brazilian Parade and Festival with Capoeira, Brazilian music and dance starting at 11:30 a.m. at the corner of Hearst and Sacramento, to Civic Center Park for a festival. www.capoeiraarts.com 

Mini-Farmers in Tilden A farm exploration program, from 10 to 11:30 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. 1-888-EBPARKS. 

Rebuilding Together Oakland Block Building Program in the Elmhurst neighborhood of East Oakland. Volunteers will work in teams to restore and rehabilitate the homes of six elderly or disabled low-income homeowners and the neighborhood school. Skilled and unskilled volunteers welcome and must be at least 14 years of age to volunteer. RSVP to 625-0316. www.rtoakland.org 

Reptile Rendevous Learn about the reptiles that live in Tilden Park, from 2 to 3 p.m. at Tilden Nature Center. 525-2233. 

Bunny Adoption Day Come meet our rescued bunnies and learn how to train and care for a house rabbit, from 2 to 5 p.m. at RabbitEars, 377 Colusa Ave., Kensington. 525-6155. 

Native Plant Fair with plants, bulbs and books from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. at Native Here Nursery, 101 Golf Course Dr,. Tilden Park, across from Tilden Golf Course entrance. Sponsored by California Native Plant Society East Bay. www.ebcnps.org 

Telling Tales: A Fall Storytelling Festival featuring Awele Makeba, Kirk Waller, Nancy Schimmel and Walker Brents III, from noon to 5 p.m. at Berkwood Hedge School, 1809 Bancroft Way. Cost is $7, $20 per family. 883-6994.  

University Students Cooperative Association 75th Anniversary Gala at 6:30 p.m. at Hs Lordships, Berkeley Marina. For ticket information and reservations see www.bsc.coop/75th 

Home Movie Day Screenings begin at 12:30 p.m., and a special progam at 4 p.m. at PFA, 2575 Bancroft Way. For information on how to submit your old home movies, see www.bampfa.berkeley.edu/film/FN17187 

Benefit for Chaplain James Yee, former U.S. Army Muslim Chaplain at 7 p.m. at Berkeley Fellowship of Unitarian Universalists, 1924 Cedar St. 495-5132. www.bfuu.org 

El Cerrito Democratic Club Annual Meeting and dinner with speaker Normon Solomon on “End of an Error - Beginning of an Era: Achieving Our Goals in a Post-Bush America” and music by Vukani Mawethu, at 6 p.m. at Arlington Community Church, 52 Arlington Ave. For reservations see www.ecdclub.org 

“An American Blackout” A film about the stolen elections of 2000 and 2004 at 5:30 p.m. with catered dinner at Sky Lounge in El Cerrito, 10458 San Pablo Ave. Donation $5-$10. Sponsored by the El Cerrito Green Party. 526-0972. 

“Writing a Memoir That Sells” with David Henry Sterry, Beth Lisick and Alan Black at the California Writers Club, at 10 a.m. at Barnes & Nobel, Jack London Square, Oakland. 272-0120. 

“Sufi Peacemaking: A New Model of Mediation” led by Nura Laird and Lynn Hammond from 9:30 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. at the Unitarian Universalist Church of Berkeley, 1 Lawson Rd., Kensington. Cost is $45. To register call 233-2666. 

“Love, Loss and Longing” A conference on Cuban families torn apart from 10:30 a.m. to 230 p.m. at Chabot College, 25555 Hesperian Blvd., Hayward. 832-2372. 

Jewish Literature and Discussion Series meets to discuss “The Lover” by A.B. Yehoshua at 2 p.m. at the Kensington Library, 61 Arlington Ave. 524-3043. 

Ancestral DNA Testing A workshop from noon to 3 p.m. at College of Alameda, 555 Ralph Appezzato Memorial Parway, Alameda. Cost is $150. Registration required. 748-2352. 

USS Hornet Museum Open House with tours of the ship and its airplanes from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. at 707 W. Hornet Ave., Pier 3, Alameda. 521-8448. www.uss-hornet.org 

Free Internet Classes “All About Email” at 10 a.m. at the El Cerrito Library, 6510 Stockton St., El Cerrito. 526-7512. 

Jewish Harvest Holiday for Preschoolers at 10:30 a.m. at Jewish Gateways near the El Cerrito BART station. RSVP to Rabbi Bridget Wynne at 559-8140 or rabbibridget@jewishgateways.org.  

Preschool Storytime, for ages 3-5, at 11 a.m. at Albany Library, 1247 Marin Ave. 526-3720, ext. 17. 

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

The Berkeley Lawn Bowling Club provides free instruction every Wed. and Sat. at 10:30 a.m. at 2270 Acton St. 841-2174.  

Oakland Artisans Marketplace Sat. from 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. and Sun. from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. at Jack London Square. 238-4948. 

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, OCT. 19 

Family Bird Walk Learn birding basics during a short walk through various avian habitats, from 3 to 4:30 p.m. at Tilden Nature Center. Tilden Park. 525-2233. 

Bountiful Berries A mile-long hike to learn about native berry-producing plants, and the wildlife that enjoys them, from 10:30 a.m. to noon at Tilden Nature Center, Tilden Park. 525-2233. 

Native Plant Fair with plants, bulbs and books from noon to 3 p.m. at Native Here Nursery, 101 Golf Course Dr,. Tilden Park, across from Tilden Golf Course entrance. Sponsored by California Native Plant Society East Bay. www.ebcnps.org 

Friends of the Kensington Library Fall Book Sale from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. in the parking lot behind the Library at 61 Arlington Ave, Kensington. The ‘Bag Sale’ will begin at 2p.m. 524-3043. 

Community Labyrinth Peace Walk at 3 p.m. at Willard Middle School, Telegraph Ave. between Derby and Stuart. Everyone welcome. Wheelchair accessible. 526-7377. info@eastbaylabyrinthproject.org  

“It Came From Berkeley: How Berkeley Changed the World” with author Dave Weinstein at 2 p.m. at the Berkeley History Center, 1931 Center St. 848-0181. 

El Cerrito Historical Society Meeting will feature a video about the Technical Porcelain and Chinaware Company, or “TEPCO” which was for years the biggest employer in El Cerrito, at 1 p.m. at the Senior Center, 6510 Stockton Ave. 526-7507. www.elcerritowire.com/history 

Berkeley CyberSalon with freelance Wired and Variety journalist Scott Kirsner at 6 p.m. at Hillside Club, 2286 Cedar St. Cost is $10-$15. whoisylvia@aol.com 

East Bay Atheists meets at 1:30 p.m. at Berkeley Main Library, 3rd Floor, 2090 Kittredge St. 222-7580. 

“Update on Childhood Vaccinations” with Dr Thauna Abrin on ingredients in vaccinations and how they affect the body and how to prepare your child's body for a vaccination at 10 a.m. at Pharmaca, 1744 Solano Ave. 282-2104. 

“The Roots of the Unitarian Controversy” with Bill Hamilton-Holway at 10 a.m. at the Unitarian Universalist Church of Berkeley, 1 Lawson Rd., Kensington. 525-0302, ext. 306. 

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 

Berkeley/North East Bay Chapter of the ACLU Annual Meeting at 1 p.m. at the Albany Senior Center 846 Masonic Ave., Albany. Guests welcome. 558-0377. 

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 

Berkeley Chess Club meets every Sun. at 7 p.m. at the Hillside School, 1581 Le Roy Ave. 843-0150. 

Tibetan Buddhism with Robin Caton on “The Silent Sound of the Mind” at 6 p.m. at the Tibetan Nyingma Institute, 1815 Highland Pl. 809-1000. www.nyingmainstitute.com 

Sew Your Own Open Studio Come learn to use our industrial and domestic machines, or work on your own projects, from 4 to 8 p.m. at 84 Bolivar Dr., Aquatic Park. Also on Fri. from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. Cost is $5 per hour. 644-2577. www.watersideworkshops.org 

CITY MEETINGS 

Citizens Humane Commission meets Wed., Oct. 15, at 7 p.m., at the North Berkeley Senior Center. 981-6601. 

Commission on Aging meets Wed., Oct. 15, at 1:30 p.m., at the South Berkeley Senior Center. 981-5344. 

Homeless Commission meets Wed., Oct. 15, at 7 p.m., at the North Berkeley Senior Center. 981-5426.  

Planning Commission meets Wed., Oct. 15, at 7 p.m., at the North Berkeley Senior Center. 981-7484. 

Police Review Commission meets Wed., Oct. 15, at the South Berkeley Senior Center. 981-4950. 

Design Review Committee meets Thurs., Oct. 16, at 7:30 p.m., at the North Berkeley Senior Center. 981-7415. 

Fair Campaign Practices Commission meets Thurs., Oct. 16, at 7:30 p.m., at the North Berkeley Senior Center. 981-6950.  

Transportation Commission meets Thurs., Oct. 16, at 7 p.m., at the North Berkeley Senior Center. 981-7010.