Last week’s USA Today report that placed three Berkeley schools in the first percentile of schools with bad air quality has activists, community members and school directors in an uproar. -more-

Neighborhood opponents of West Berkeley’s Pacific Steel Casting went one-for-two in Alameda County Superior Court legal decisions on Friday, with one judge overturning a previous Berkeley Small Claims Court ruling in favor of several PSC neighbors and, in a separate action, a second judge ruling that a class-action lawsuit against the steel foundry can go forward. -more-

Forget all that stuff about “godless Berkeley.” -more-

Berkeley City Council stumbled (again) on Tuesday over the vexing issue of expanding cell-phone tower facilities in the city, failing to decide on a Verizon Wireless application for 1540 Shattuck Ave. and failing for the third straight meeting to either grant a hearing or dismiss a similar appeal for ZAB approval of a T-Mobile facility at 1725 University Ave. -more-

More than 300 ’60s and ’70s era radicals and students not born until the ’80s gathered at Oakland’s Merritt College on Saturday to honor a man executed by the State of California three years ago and to hear strategies to end the cycle of criminalization of American communities and the country’s re-volving prison door and the death penalty. -more-

Hillside Elementary School, a local and national historic landmark, stands on the brink of yet another reinvention. -more-

Berkeley’s Zoning Adjustments Board delayed approval of developer Ali Kashani’s five-story condo project at the corner of Ashby and San Pablo avenues last week. -more-

Sprawling parking lots proposed at either of the two Berkeley Marina sites picked as potential locations for a new transbay ferry service have sparked concerns among the city’s planning commissioners. -more-

Boat blaze -more-

Berkeley police are searching for three men responsible for the burglary of more than $10,000 worth of prescription drugs from Elephant Pharmacy around 1 a.m. on Dec. 9. -more-

The charm of Piedmont Avenue in North Oakland is its mix of newness and nostalgia; like a big family, where young and old live side by side. -more-

Berkeley’s Malcolm X Arts and Academics Magnet, an elementary school that integrates art and academics, has been awarded the Title One Academic Achievement award for 2008-2009. -more-

Berkeley’s largest private development site—8.2 acres adjacent to Aquatic Park—is coming on the market, and the owners want the city to ease the rules. -more-

The man who residents of downtown Berkeley elected to represent their district on the City Council came to the Planning Commission last week to make a request. -more-

The last UC Santa Cruz tree sitter surrendered to campus police Saturday, moments before a chainsaw-wielding crew began to level the redwood grove they had occupied for 402 days. -more-

Berkeley police said that they have a person of interest and a vehicle of interest in connection with seven daytime “window-smash” burglaries, and one attempted burglary, at homes in northwest and north central Berkeley in the last two weeks. -more-

NEW SECRETARY OF ENERGY -more-

Across our country, millions of Americans embraced President-elect Obama’s message of change. They embraced this idea because they knew America could do better. Today, Berkeley High School is also ready for change. We support the Berkeley High School Redesign Plan because it will improve academic achievement for all students by providing personalization through a student advisory program, increasing time on task in academic and elective classes, providing greater student support services, and improving teacher quality through increased opportunities for professional development. Moving to a block schedule is a fundamental component of this plan. -more-

The Berkeley Public Library is continuing its unfortunate tradition of seriously misrepresenting the facts about radio frequency identification (RFID) as it seeks a waiver of the Nuclear Free Berkeley Act from the Peace and Justice Commission (P&J), and eventually from the City Council. -more-

As director of the Zionist Freedom Alliance and one of the organizers of Israel Liberation Week at UC Berkeley last month, I was disturbed to learn some of the things being said about the ZFA not only by the “Students for Justice in Palestine” and their supporters, but also by the Bay Area’s organized Jewish leadership. For readers unaware of recent events at Berkeley, the ZFA hosted Israel Liberation Week on campus from Nov. 10-14. On the afternoon of Thursday, Nov. 13, we brought Jewish, black and Mexican performers together for a concert advocating Jewish national rights. A series of unnecessary events that began with a disruption of the concert by the SJP and ended in a violent confrontation between Arabs and Jews has since become the focus of media attention. -more-

With the final vote count now certified, we can be very thankful that the victor’s margin was more than 8,500,000 votes. Had it been a closer election, with, say, a 500,000 vote margin, the wrong candidate—the one with fewer votes—might have been elected, once again. We know the terrible costs of this flaw in our electoral system: more than 4,000 American soldiers dead, 60,000 severely wounded, and three trillion dollars wasted on a war brought on by hubris and deception. This, plus 4 million Iraqi people displaced from their homes and over a hundred thousand killed. Now, in the twilight of this disastrous presidency, we are suffering an economic recession, a flat-out theft, of so many billions of dollars that one’s sense of outrage is numbly anesthetized. -more-

I agree with the judgment of the curator of the Addison Street Window Gallery and am glad that the Arts Commission supported her decision. When I first saw Jos Sances’ poster, I had an immediate, visceral, negative reaction. I tried to figure out why I had reacted so strongly. I thought about the Eddie Adams’ photograph upon which the poster was based. I remembered the pain on Nguyen Van Lem’s face as the bullet fired by Nguyen Ngoc Loan ripped through his skull. That photograph affected me deeply as it did so may others because it caused me to wonder about how the Vietnam War had destroyed the humanity of both men. Adams’ photograph, in turn, caused me to think about Nick Út’s photograph of 9-year-old Phan Th Kim Phúc running naked on the street after being severely burned on her back by an American napalm bomb. I thought that Út’s photograph was powerful precisely because it showed how individuals were being brutally victimized by American actions. I wondered if the pilots of the planes, after they saw the photo, reflected on the unspeakable pain they were inflicting on innocent people. -more-

Charles Siegel’s Dec. 11 commentary “The Anti-Transit Crowd Is at it Again” takes aim at a local minority group, using the tired old language of discrimination. He correctly points out that only a minority of Berkeley citizens voted for Measure KK, but he seems to have forgotten that legitimate democracies protect the rights of minority groups whenever possible. -more-

Charles Siegel’s entire Dec. 11commentary (“The Anti-Transit Crowd Is at it Again”) is based on a fallacy. In it, Mr. Siegel equated, as he has on many occasions, opposition to AC Transit’s current BRT proposal with being “anti-transit.” No one that I know who is anti-BRT is anti-transit. It is, in fact, just the opposite. Those of us who oppose the current BRT proposal oppose it because we are pro-transit. We want to see taxpayer dollars spent for real improvements in public transportation in the East Bay. The current BRT proposal is not projected to provide any benefit which would justify its enormous cost. -more-

Don Santina is apparently incapable of discerning between disputing the lopsided writing of history and “historical revisionism.” Neither can he acknowledge that criticizing Communist Party politics do not make the critic a “McCarthyite.” Historical revisionism, in the lexicon of neutral historians, denotes questioning the dominant interpretation of past events. I would be honored to accept the label if Santina were using it descriptively instead of as an insulting conversation-stopper. The main Revisionist issue is Holocaust Denial, a predominately right-wing position, and Santina’s clear intent is to paint me with that brush, along with the other right-wing phenomenon he mentions: paranoid American anti-Communism. As an anarchist, my distrust of Leninists and Stalinists is directly tied to the often homicidal interactions (initiated by them) between the partisans of our respective movements, and has absolutely nothing to do with the frenzied Cold War hunt for secret Communist sympathizers and agents. I have no connection to Rush Limbaugh either—another of Santina’s absurd attempt at guilt-by-association, made in conscious bad faith. -more-

One Friday in early March of 1965 I received in the mail two job offers: mathematics instructor at Diablo Valley College and Extension specialist at the University of California, Berkeley. -more-

Two things emerge from last month’s horrendous attack on Mumbai: one is how interconnected South Asia is with the rest of the world. The other is how the Carter Administration’s ill-conceived strategy in Afghanistan more than 30 years ago still reverberates throughout the region. Decades of subversion, terrorism and invasion have created what historian Vijay Prashad calls a “cauldron” from which has emerged avenging angels and dark demons in equal measure. -more-

I have long believed that in the first term of a two-term, four-year administration, the second year is the one to watch if you’re trying to figure out where the administration is going. The first year can be spent getting oriented, hiring staff, learning the situation, and beginning the first policy initiatives. Unless the mistakes are spectacularly bad, there is plenty of time left in the term to make up for first-year mistakes. The fourth year is an election year, and the administrator—president, governor, or mayor—is either deeply involved in running for re-election or have decided to settle for one term. The record upon which a four-year administration is running for re-election, therefore, must be firmly established by the third year. Because most government policies take a long time to actually bear fruit, things which an administration wants to make manifest in the third year must have already been planted at least a year in advance. Thus, it’s at the end of the second year that you can start making judgments of possible success or failure. -more-

I walked into my living room last Saturday morning and found a Bewick’s wren perched on the back of the armchair. -more-

Thornton Wilder created a substantial body of work but there seems little doubt that his lasting fame depends on Our Town. Since its opening on Broadway 70 years ago this extraordinary play has never really been off the stage. New productions of it open somewhere in the world almost every month. -more-

I recently received a letter from a reader (Let’s call him PR) about his experiences with a local contractor and his illegal help. His concern, which is to be commended, is in regards to the pay and working conditions afforded his helper, whom he pseudonymously called Gem (presumably his feelings about the worker, which he effused copiously in a letter which is too long to include herein). -more-