The three American hikers who recently disappeared in Iran have been identified as UC Berkeley graduates. At least two are journalists based in Africa and the Middle East. 

The university's News Center reported Aug. 3 that former students Shane Bauer, Sarah Emily Shourd and Joshua Felix Fattal were hiking in Iraq's Kurdistan region last week when they were reportedly detained by the Iranian government. U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton asked Iranian authorities to provide information about their safety. 

Bauer, who was born in Minnesota, is a 2007 peace and conflict studies graduate and used his fluency in Arabic to work in North Africa and the Middle East, where he spent the majority of the last six years. His website shows that he has recently produced stories on Iraq and Syria for New American Media. 

As an undergraduate, Bauer, 27, took courses in UC Berkeley's Graduate School of Journalism, going on to win the university's Matthew M. Lyon Prize in Photography in 2007 for his photographs of the devastation in Darfur, Sudan. 

On his website, Bauer is described as "a documentary photographer and journalist whose work focuses on the effects of social, economic, and political realities on the lives of people around the world." His blog posts cover a wide array of topics, ranging from the violence of al Qaeda to orphans in Ethiopia to unrest in the Arab world. Bauer's photographs of the residents of a hotel in San Francisco's Tenderloin district were selected by his classmates as the lead story of the journalism school's May 2007 issue of Realeyes magazine. 

Shourd, 30, transferred from Diablo Valley College to UC Berkeley in 2000. She graduated three years later with a B.A. in English. Shourd recently reported a story for New American Media on Israel's Golan Heights. 

The website bravenewtraveler.com describes Shourd as a "teacher-activist-writer from California currently based in the Middle East." 

Her last story for the website, in 2008, was titled "Escape from Iraq: A Muslim Family Finds Solace in Ramadan. 

Fattal, 27, graduated from UC Berkeley in 2004 with a B.S. in environmental economics and policy from the College of Natural Resources. Shon Meckfessel, a fourth American detainee, who news reports said was with the three in Turkey but did not take part in the July 31 hike, enrolled in a summer course in Arabic at UC Berkeley two years ago and is currently going to graduate school in linguistics at the University of Washington. 

The Times UK reported a Kurdish official who said the three contacted one of their colleagues to say they had entered Iran "accidentally" Friday and had found themselves surrounded by troops. The Times said that Iran's state television had reported that the Americans were arrested after they did not listen to warnings from Iranian border guards. It said that efforts by Swiss diplomats to get information about the three had been unsuccessful. 

Earlier this year Current TV journalists Laura Ling and Euna Lee, who were held by North Korean authorities near the China border, were sentenced to 12 years of hard labor for illegal entry into the country and "hostile acts." 

Former U.S. President Bill Clinton traveled to North Korea and negotiated their release.

UC Berkeley is moving the site of its BP-funded agrofuel research from the hills above Strawberry Canyon to the heart of downtown Berkeley. 

The Helios Energy Research Facility West will rise in the northeastern quadrant of the site now occupied by the eight-story building formerly occupied by the state Department of Health Services. 

That building occupies much of the two-block area between Berkeley Way on the south, Hearst Avenue on the north, Oxford Street on the east and Shattuck Avenue on the west. 

In a letter to members of the Berkeley City Council, UC Berkeley Chancellor Robert Birgeneau wrote that the Helios West building would enclose “about 64,000 square feet of useable interior space.”  

A call for a general contractor to build the new structure posted on the university’s website late last week describes the overall structure at 113,000 square feet. 

Birgenau said the building size is “consistent with the amount of development anticipated in the UC Berkeley Long Range Development Plan 2020.” 

A lawsuit challenging that plan led to a settlement which mandated creation of a new Downtown Area Plan, which was approved by the City Council in June to accommodate more than 800,000 square feet of development the university plans in the city center. 

“It’s consistent with what we would like to see on the site,” said city Planning and Development Director Dan Marks. “They’re still doing massing studies and architectural work, but what I’ve seen is within the parameters of the Downtown Area Plan.” 

UC Berkeley Executive Director of Public Affairs Dan Mogulof agreed, adding that the remaining site could still accommodate the public health campus that university planning staff told the Downtown Area Plan Advisory Committee (DAPAC) had been the university’s intended use of the two-block site. 

But one DAPAC member who also serves on the city’s planning commission has doubts. 

“That could blow the whole downtown plan out of the water,” said Gene Poschman. That plan was adopted less than three weeks ago by the Berkeley City Council after significant changes—by both the council and the Planning Commission—had been made to the original plan submitted by DAPAC. 

Jesse Arreguín, the city councilmember whose district includes the proposed site, said he had been surprised by the move and would be closely monitoring the project as it develops. 

Stephan Volker, the environmental law attorney who had challenged the university’s environmental review of the lab’s earlier site on the hillside above Strawberry Canyon, called the move “a classic example of the university’s arrogance.” 

“What’s wrong here,” Volker said, “is that the university never comes clean and ask the public to help in their decisions. Instead, they hold themselves arrogantly aloof from the public and follow their own internal objectives and jam them down their throats.” 

Documents about the move are posted at the university’s Facilities Services web page announcing calls for bids of prequalifications at www.cp.berkeley.edu/AdsForBids.html. They are last two items on the web page, listed under the heading “Request for prequalifications.” 

Michael Lozeau, who has also repeatedly challenged university plans in court, laughed when told of the move. 

“How are they going to collaborate, man?” he asked, chuckling. His comment targeted the statements of lab scientists earlier in the approval process for the LBNL site, when they said Helios had to be on the hill so scientists on the project could readily consult with other lab scientists working on similar projects. 

Lozeau said the simple fact that the lab had been relocated was proof in itself that the lab could move further away, perhaps to the university’s Richmond Field Station. 

Mogulof said the new site was chosen over Richmond because scientists could still readily meet with each other on the campus, just across Oxford from the new site. 

Forcing researchers and grad students to drive or bus to Richmond would be a hindrance to collaboration, he said. 

Volker said two of his clients in his suit against the original site were pleased that the lab had moved off the hill. 

“We are pleased that Helios as moved out of Strawberry Canyon, and I’m certainly gratified that our litigation prompted its removal from a very sensitive environmental resource that should be preserved for all time.” 

But Volker said he was “concerned that if British Petroleum continues to be involved, it augers for the continued privatization of a a public university.” He said he was also concerned that there wouldn’t be adequate public oversight of proprietary corporate research that will be conducted behind security locks inside BP’s proprietary portion of the facility. 

Mogulof said the university would ensure that adequate safeguards were in place to protect both those working inside the lab and the Berkeley community and university on the outside. 

Research on turning plants into fuels has been deemed a national security issue, but critics, including some internationally known members of the UCB faculty, have worried that turning to plants for fuels could wreak ecological havoc and lead to corporate colonization of the grasslands and rain forests of the Third World—the subject of a recent major article in the German magazine Der Spiegel. 

Students and other activists, including several faculty members, protested before the university and the UC Board of Regents approved the project. Several students were arrested during the protest. 

Mogulof said there are still several steps remaining before the project can move forward. 

First, the regents must approve the change of plans, the new site and the funding. Currently $70 million in state bond revenues are allocated for the lab, The remainder will come from private contributions and external funding sources, he said, and BP is not putting up any construction money. 

The first step before construction can begin is demolition of the existing building. If all goes as planned, construction on the new lab could begin in summer, 2010, with completion by the fall of 2012. 

Mogulof denied that the move was a response to Volker’s suit, and said the decision was made because of the CEQA process. 

    “The change was based on what the environmental review revealed about the site. That’s just the way CEQA is supposed to work,” he said.

BART management and union leaders this morning announced a tentative agreement on new four-year contract that, if given final approval, will avoid a strike by BART workers. 

The announcement was made late this morning in Oakland, after 27 straight hours of negotiations, by BART General Manager Dorothy Dugger, Services Employees International Union Local 1021 President Lisa Isler, and Amalgamated Transit Union Local 1555 President Jesse Hunt. 

American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees Local 3993 President Jean Hamilton also issued a statement this morning announcing a tentative agreement. 

The three unions represent more than 2,800 BART workers. 

The officials each noted the tentative agreements still need to be ratified by union members. 

Dugger said during a news conference that an agreement was reached “that was fair, that achieves our goals, that will help put us on financially stable footing.” She said it included changes to work rules and capping the cost of benefits. 

Isler said it included no job cuts and no salary cuts. 

“We can get back to work, and get on with providing service to the public,” Isler said, adding that she hoped SEIU members would ratify the agreement by the end of next week. 

Hunt said all parties made sacrifices to reach the agreements. 

“This has been an extraordinarily difficult negotiations, in extraordinarily poor economic times,” Hunt said.  

A chemical spilled from a backpack at West Berkeley’s REI store Wednesday afternoon forced the evacuation of scores of customers and employees. 

The red liquid spilled from the backpack of a customer after he submitted it for security screening just inside the entrance to the large facility at 1338 San Pablo Ave. 

Within seconds, everyone standing nearby—at least 25 people—began coughing and choking as fumes from the fluid hit the air, said Deputy Fire Chief Gil Dong. 

A 911 call brought firefighters to the scene, along with their hazardous materials (HazMat) team and paramedics. 

Ambulances began to arrive within minutes, transporting five victims to the Alta Bates Summit Medical Emergency facility in Berkeley. 

None appeared to be seriously injured. 

Store employees and customers flooded out into the store’s parking lot, where firefighters quickly strung emergency tape to seal off the scene. 

The deputy fire chief said a firefighter had asked the man who brought the pack into the store to wait at the scene. 

“They allowed the guy to walk away,” said one irate customer. “The Fire Department just watched him walk away,” said Michael Kauzer, who had been shopping at the outdoor supplier with his family. 

“We didn’t know what he was carrying, and they just let him go along with his pack. That’s ridiculous.” 

Dong acknowledged that the suspect had left, adding that the Fire Department has no power to detain suspects at the scene. 

“We’re not peace officers,” he said. 

The suspect, described by Kauzer as a man “who appeared to be homeless and carrying everything he owned on his back,” was wearing noise-canceling headphones. 

“He appeared to be about 40,” Kauzer said. “When I last saw him, he was walking south on San Pablo.” 

“I went up to one of the firefighters and asked him to stop the guy, but they just let him go. So I still don’t know what my family and I were exposed to.” 

The deputy fire chief said he believes the chemical the man was carrying may have been some type of pepper spray. 

“We can’t be sure until we have it analyzed,” he said. 

The department was planning to take a sample to Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, where Dong said he hoped a spectrometer analysis would determine the precise nature of the noxious compound. 

Berkeley police fanned out from the scene in search of the man, though no arrests had been made by deadline. 

One firefighter said he suspected the man had been in the store in search of a new container for the liquid. 

In addition to the five people sent to the emergency room, paramedics had asked three others to go, but they refused, said the deputy chief. 

The crowd of employees and customers waited behind the Fire Department tape for word that the store was safe to enter. 

“We’re not going to let anyone back in until we can check the air and determine that’s it’s safe” Dong said. 

In a move that was widely expected, opponents of the city of Berkeley’s Downtown Area Plan have begun a petition drive for a voter referendum on the plan.  

The Downtown Area Plan, passed by the Berkeley City Council on a 7–2 vote earlier this month, sets the direction, goals, and parameters of downtown Berkeley development for the foreseeable future. 

If at a minimum 5,558 valid signatures of registered Berkeley voters are collected and turned in to city officials by Aug. 20, the City Council has the option of either invalidating the Downtown Area Plan itself or putting a referendum on the November 2010 ballot for voters to decide if they want the plan implemented. 

The petition wording says “we the undersigned voters of the City of Berkeley protest the passage of [the resolution] adopting a new plan for our downtown. The plan gives developers the right to build massive skyscrapers (up to 22 stories) without environmental protections and improvements essential for a vibrant Downtown. The Council’s plan lacks good transit options, protections for all workers, mitigations for greenhouse gas emissions, and does nothing to preserve the quality of life for neighbors in and around the Downtown. This plan promotes tiny apartments and condos for millionaires, but fails to provide the affordable housing ordinary people need to live in our community. Instead of reflecting our values, our future is placed in the hands of corporate developers and UC. The plan should be put before the voters.” 

Representatives of Livable Berkeley, one of several groups that supported the final version of the Downtown Area Plan, and the Berkeley Chamber of Commerce did not return calls asking for comment on the petition drive. A spokesperson for Mayor Tom Bates said that if the mayor issued a statement on the petition drive, it would not be until after the mayor returns from vacation Aug. 17. 

One of the first to sign the petition was Berkeley City Councilmember Jesse Arreguín, who, along with Councilmember Kriss Worthington, is on the committee coordinating the signature-gathering. Arreguín and Worthington voted against the Downtown Area Plan when it was approved by the council July 16. 

During council deliberations on the plan, Worthington had hinted several times that a referendum petition drive was likely. 

“I voted against the downtown plan because I felt that the final plan doesn’t really address a lot of the critical needs that we have as a community,” Arreguín said by telephone this week. The councilmember cited the need for more affordable housing, ensuring that new buildings “are contributing to the revitalization of downtown Berkeley through providing public benefits,” ensuring that we have adequate protections for workers in businesses in the downtown area, and protecting for neighborhoods as among the reasons he opposed the final version of the plan. He felt that “the council’s plan is really a blank check for corporate developers and university executives. It doesn’t reflect the values of the people of Berkeley and doesn’t reflect our priorities. I think it’s critical that we get enough signatures on the petitions so we can put this on the ballot and let the voters decide the future of downtown and that we’re not just leaving it in the hands of a few property owners and developers.” 

And while debate over the various building-height limits got much of the attention during the extended meetings in which the council passed the plan earlier this month, Worthington said by telephone this week that height was not his major concern about the council version of the plan. Instead, he said, he was disturbed about the lack of adequate affordable housing, support for public transportation, and mitigations of greenhouse gas emissions in the plan. 

In a telephone interview, Worthington said that opponents of the referendum were already using what the councilmember called “scare tactics” to try to get people to refuse to sign the referendum petitions, including telling individuals that it would cost $200,000 to hold a “special election” for the referendum. Worthington said that, if the petition campaign is successful and the referendum is held in November 2010, during the next general election, that the actual cost to the city would be in the neighborhood of $10,000. 

Also on the petition coordinating committee are Berkeley School Board member John Selawsky, Berkeley Rent Stabilization Board Chair Lisa Stephens, Planning Commissioners Gene Poschman and Patti Dacey, Austene Hall of the Berkeley Architectural Heritage Association and the Landmarks Preservation Commission, and Tom Hunt.  

Stephens, Poschman, Dacey, and Arreguín all served on the Downtown Area Plan Advisory Committee, the council-appointed citizens’ group that wrote the original version of the Downtown Area Plan. That version was later modified by the Berkeley Planning Commission, and the Planning Commission version became the foundation for the final plan passed by the council.  

City Clerk Deanna Despain certified the referendum petition for circulation on July 23, two days after she certified the Downtown Area Plan itself and released its final, passed version to the public. 

Planning commissioners finished the easy part of their West Berkeley zoning changes Wednesday, July 22, but the hardest part will be on their agenda after their August break. 

Skeptics of the City Council directive aimed at easing development restrictions in the city’s only sector zoned for industry and manufacturing won on one key vote governing the breakup of space within existing sites, but they may face a tougher road on the larger issue of the master use permit. 

Master use permits would govern multi-use development on larger sites, but how large and how many are key questions commissioners will address starting in September in meetings likely to provoke semantic firestorms. 

The controversy pits a coalition of West Berkeley’s smaller manufacturers and artisans against developers with big hopes for the area and a City Council allied with UC Berkeley in a vision of the sector as home to a building and revenue bonanza tied to “green tech” patents created by UC scientists and spun off to start-up companies. 

The outcome of the contest will determine the shape of West Berkeley. 

During the July 22 meeting, commissioners faced an audience overwhelmingly composed of members of the group West Berkeley Artisans and Industrial Companies (WEBAIC) and their allies. 

WEBAIC and two of West Berkeley’s leading real estate brokers, John Norheim and Don Yost, have emerged as allies, pitted against the area’s major developers and some—but by no means all—commercial property owners. 

Commissioners disposed of one key issue by adopting a proposal formulated by WEBAIC, Norheim, Yost and former city Office of Economic Development Director Neil Mayer on rules for subdividing (“demising,” in planner-speak) space within existing sites. 

The choice facing the commissioners was what level of oversight should govern the demising process. 

The first, a zoning certificate is a simple process, acquired by a simple exchange at the counter of the city Planning and Development Department and requires no extensive review. 

The second level of oversight governs the administrative use permit (AUP), where scrutiny by city staff is required before a permit can be issued. 

The third and most complex level is the use permit, for which applicants must submit to a staff review, followed by a public hearing before the Zoning Adjustments Board. 

The two proposals from planning staff would have made the administrative use permit the highest level of scrutiny for demising buildings and allowed a zoning certificate only for the largest divisions of the smallest of three categories of buildings, based on square footage. 

The third and ultimately prevailing alternative from WEBAIC and its allies created a simpler system based on the number of proposed subdivisions of a structure. 

Breakup into two to five spaces, regardless of square footage of either the building or the newly created spaces, would be allowed with a simple zoning certificate. Subdivision into six to nine spaces would require an AUP, while breakup into 10 or more spaces would mandate a full use permit with a public hearing before the Zoning Adjustments Board. 

Before the vote, Michael Ziegler, owner of the Temescal Business Center at Seventh and Heinz streets, urged commissioners to grant demising permits with a simple zoning certificate.  

Rick Auerbach, WEBAIC’s lone staff member, said his group’s proposal would ease the process for owners of small buildings, while “people with large buildings have resources owners of smaller buildings don’t, and that’s where oversight should be concentrated.” 

Auerbach said oversight would be concentrated on breakup of large buildings into 10 or more spaces, “because the reality is that more spaces means that disproportionately more people are packed in, more people are parked on the streets.” 

“We’re really liberalizing” the rules, he said. “Over 10 is really where it gets controversial.” 

Asked by commissioners, Alex Amoroso, the city planner assigned to what is now known officially as the West Berkeley Project, said he had no objections to the WEBAIC proposal, and commissioners voted unanimously to approve it. 

Commissioners also voted unanimously to ease regulations on existing manufacturers who want to open retail outlets to sell the products they make. Under the current city zoning code, they can create “incidental retail” outlets on site only with a full use permit and zoning board hearing. 

Commissioners voted unanimously to lower the requirement to an administrative use permit from the current use permit level. 

Two other unanimous votes would allow site owners zoned for Material Recovery Enterprise (recycling), Manufacturing, Warehousing or Wholesale to freely interchange uses of floor space among the categories with a use permit and to switch the numerical categorization of businesses from the current but outmoded Standard Industrial Code to the North American Industrial Classification System. 

The four votes, held within a few short moments, were followed by a burst of applause from the WEBAIC-dominated audience. 

Master use permits 

By far the hottest potato on the commission’s plate is the master use permit (MUP), as it will apply to future development in West Berkeley. 

For the council majority and its allies in UC Berkeley and the development industry, the stated goal is allowing development of as many sites as needed to accommodate the anticipated bonanza from high-tech solutions to the energy and global warming crises. 

For WEBAIC and its allies, the professed desire is to preserve West Berkeley as a place where artists, small industries and current residents can continue to thrive and not be priced out by rising real estate prices from the anticipated green-tech bonanza. 

Under the master use permit, a developer can build in stages as the market warrants while facing only one regulatory process at the very beginning rather than a new one each time something new is built at the site. 

While both sides agree the master use permit is a useful development tool, they remain strongly divided about how many should be issued and on what sites. 

Other issues involve the height and massiveness of buildings allowed under the MUP process, with developers asking for taller and bulkier buildings than WEBAIC wants; how much parking should be required for each project; what uses should be permitted on MUP sites; and what benefits developers should give the city in exchange for the right to build their projects. 

Steve Goldin, a principal at SWERVE, a West Berkeley furniture manufactory and software company and a proponent of greater development in the area, said, “It’s an economic issue. There is a subtle bias against developers,” but “we need to have flexibility to make a deal with the city to make it work.” 

Darrell de Tienne, a developer’s representative who has appeared before city bodies representing Wareham Properties, Seagate Properties and would-be West Berkeley developer Douglas Herst, said critics “take a rigid point of view” of development. “But you need to know you’re getting a new world” with the demand for technology to meet energy needs and global warming, he said. 

Business center owner Ziegler built his firm with a master use permit and remains a strong advocate for the process. 

City planner Amoroso recommended the city allow a floor-to-area ratio (FAR) of 4, double the current city maximum. Heights would be increased from the current 45-foot maximum to 70, and could go up to 90 feet for projects that meet “special considerations and needs.” 

He proposed allowing master use permits on all four-acre sites, and granting up to 10 permits in the five years after the zoning changes are adopted. Developers would also be able to buy adjacent sites to meet the minimum acre threshold. 

Master use permits could also be granted on sites smaller than the minimum acreage as long as they encompass an entire city block. 

Auerbach said four acres is too small, with WEBAIC proposing a four-and-a-half-acre minimum. “Four-acre sites would mean 42 percent of West Berkeley. Instead of six master use permits in five years, Auerbach said, “six projects in 10 years would be a lot.” 

WEBAIC wants the city to hold with the current 45-foot height limit and a maximum FAR—which compares a building’s total square footage to the site area—of 2, “and we want guaranteed benefits.” Higher FARs mean taller, denser buildings. 

While the commission majority seemed to favor the staff proposal during the discussion, the issue was not resolved, and Amoroso will return to the commission in September with draft language for the revisions.

When George Yoshida greets his South Berkeley Senior Center class of “modified” tai chi and leads us into the first stretch, we see a compact, supple, dark-haired man—pushing 70? Wrong. George was born in 1922. The teaching career he began in Berkeley in 1952 continues to this day. Devoted to teaching? Yes, but his great passion is music—swing and jazz. 

Born in Seattle, where his father sang in a male sextet (American pop tunes as well as traditional Japanese songs) and his mother played the organ in a local Christian church, George moved with his family to Los Angeles in 1935, where his father might find more work in “the only work open to Japanese-Americans, G-men.” G-men? Government men—FBI? “No,” says George, with a twinkle in his eye and a sly smile, “gardeners and grocers.” 

George played baritone sax in high school, in the days of the “big swing bands,” also the days of teenage bands that imitated them. Graduating from high school in 1940, he went to L.A. City College, hoping to postpone the day when he would have to become another “G-man.” 

But then came Pearl Harbor and, in April 1942, what the ACLU calls “the greatest deprivation of civil rights by the government in this country since slavery”—Executive Order 90066, the forced removal from the West Coast of 120,000 people of Japanese descent, to concentration camps. 

“The sign on the pole ordered us to assemble nearby with only what we could carry,” says Yoshida. “I could not leave my records . . . put about 50 of my favorites—Tommy Dorsey, Artie Shaw, Duke Ellington—into a case. Clutching my lifeblood . . .” George left with his family for Arizona, Poston Detention Camp No. 1. 

Decades later, books described the resourceful ways in which the detainees, abandoned to desert barracks surrounded by barbed wire and guard towers, organized to provide their own education, medical care, recreation.  

One of these books is Yoshida’s Reminiscing in Swing: Japanese-Americans in American Popular Music, 1925–1960 (National Japanese-American Historical Society, 1997). In documentary and oral history, plus archival photos and cartoons, details 35 years of Japanese-Americans hearing, playing, singing and dancing to swing and jazz. He also touches on Japan, where the young, like young Europeans, embraced American pop music. 

But the heart of his book is the section on the detention camps of the 1940s, where young men and women created ensembles (some led and taught by interned music teachers), playing on their own or on donated, shared instruments. Sheet music ranged from new, mail-ordered “big-band” arrangements to worn, incomplete, donated scores. These groups provided music for dances in the grim, bare mess halls. George played alto sax in the Music Makers, an 11-piece band at Poston. “One advantage of the camps,” says George, “was an adequate pool of musicians who could play or wanted to learn, so we had no trouble getting full instrumentation for a band.” 

George’s book quotes Tad Hascall, director of instrumental music for the broad inmate-run program in a desert camp called Amache, in Colorado. Describing the impassioned work of imprisoned staff and students, Hascall concludes, “In spite of the difficulties and the problems to be solved, I am enjoying my work here more than I ever have before.... I can see clearly the wholesome results of music.” Or, as George puts it, with a shrug, “We were playing for our lives.” 

After a year, many detainees, including George, were released on condition that they not return to the West Coast. Where to? George chose Chicago, which offered several advantages: little prejudice against the tiny Japanese-American population (which soon increased to more than 20,000); a severe labor shortage—tough and dirty labor, but not “G-man” work (he could finally afford to buy his own tenor sax!); a vibrant pop and jazz scene, which was rigidly white/black segregated, but George moved easily between the two worlds. “I’ll never forget one Earl Hines show,” Yoshida says. “I was mesmerized by his new singer, her extraordinary range, rich timbre. It was Sarah Vaughan!” 

Deepening his exhilaration was the fact that, for the first time, he was on his own, “away from parents, free of traditional community ties, out in the world, in the mainstream!” In Chicago he met Helen Furuyama, also just released from a camp. 

George was now subject to the draft but luckily was sent not into combat but to the Military Intelligence Service Language School at Fort Snelling, Minn. As the war wound down, he took intensive training (his Japanese was a bit rusty) in preparation to be a post-war interpreter in the occupation of Japan. At Fort Snelling he played sax in the nisei Eager Beavers band (named in homage to Stan Kenton). On VE Day, May 9, 1945, he and Helen were married. His luck held—he won an honorable discharge to help his aging parents resettle after their camp ordeal. 

In 1946 George and Helen settled in Berkeley, where they could attend Armstrong Business College. Helen studied stenography and other then-“female” office skills. Classified ads listed many jobs in accounting for men, so George gave that a try. He hated it. “Debits and credits? I was so bored.” His sister was studying for a teaching credential. He applied to UC and was accepted, although he was warned by a counselor, “You just might get a teaching job, if you’re twice as good as a white applicant.” Granted credits for his army service and for classes at Armstrong, he earned (within three years) a BA in geography along with an elementary teaching credential (later picking up an administrative credential as well). “In 1952 I applied to almost every school district in the Bay Area. Not one response. Then, just as school was starting, Berkeley called me. There was an opening at Washington School—at that time a two-story wooden building on Grove (now MLK Way).” 

Unable to have children, George and Helen adopted, at one to two-year intervals, four infants of mixed parentage: one parent Japanese, the other parent of a different ethnicity. Asked for details, George’s answer is brief: “These are our children. We’re a family. Period.” 

He sold his sax and put his energy into fatherhood and teaching. “I wanted to be part of my children’s lives. One highlight was our (my sabbatical) year in Japan, 1963, surveying and reporting on arts education in elementary schools.” Back at Washington School, Principal Herb Wong, a jazz fan, encouraged a faculty jazz band, which eased George back into performing. He joined the faculty ensemble in the mid-1960s, as a drummer. (His drum teacher in Oakland got him into the Black Musicians’ Union, not yet integrated into the then-all-white Musicians Union. When they merged a few years later, “I missed those monthly meetings with the black musicians. They really were great.”) 

George’s move out of elementary education started in the early 1970s, when he was asked to help establish bilingual classes. Then he moved on to adult and senior education, coordinating and evaluating classes and programs at senior centers and nursing homes, teaching tai chi and yoga for seniors, leading classes and discussions on issues of aging: retirement, health, memory, recreation, death and dying. “After all, I had hit my 60s, so I had some of the same concerns.” 

But he could never bear to be far from music. In 1975 George organized a quartet, Sentimental Journey, in which he played drums. The group performed at various Japanese-American parties and events. And in 1989 (after his official retirement from teaching) he started the J-Town Jazz Ensemble, a 17-piece swing band based in San Francisco. “We’ve been going about 20 years now, but we’re sort of dying on the vine—yes, we’ve integrated, accepting some white musicians to fill the gaps.” 

In 1991 George established the Nikkei Music History Project for the Japanese-American Historical Society. That was when he started the research and writing that became Reminiscing in Swingtime. “Some young cats came to ask me what I knew about other musicians who’d been in the camps, urged me to call contacts, who led me to other contacts. I’m so glad they got me started then—because a lot of the people I interviewed are gone now.” 

While his book was still in production, George got another idea: a male choral group, about a dozen Japanese-Americans, most of them recent immigrants. They sing old songs, “You know, songs my mother taught me—a few of them Western-sounding but predominantly from Japan.” He hums a melody to illustrate a distinctly Asian-sounding tonality. “We shouldn’t lose this music.” 

George continues to teach tai chi, missing only a few classes when Helen’s health declined sharply, and her death ended their 63-year partnership. When he picked up the class again, he made a point of thanking the class for easing his grief by their need for his work. He’s doing more writing, too. “My memoirs. I don’t care if it never gets published. I just want to leave something for my children and six grandchildren.” 

Someone once asked George why he had switched from saxophone to drums, an instrument the questioner described as boring—“no melody; no one notices you.” 

George’s answer seems to define him: “Boring? Never. The drummer’s responsibility is to hold things together, keeping consistent time, listening to every member of the group, enhancing the musicality of the whole. The joy that comes from this perfect blending can be a sensation of undiluted rapture.” He smiles. “Remember what the Duke taught us, ‘It don’t mean a thing, if it ain’t got that swing.’ ” 

Berkeley teenagers may finally have a solution to their boredom. 

Soon they may have a new place to hang out after school, get help with homework, meet up with friends or simply have some fun. 

A building that formerly housed a PG&E service center at 2109 Martin Luther King Jr. Way is all set to become the Teen AMP (Aspirations Made Possible), Berkeley’s first center dedicated entirely to teenagers. 

While some youngsters are calling it their legacy, others are simply happy to have a place they can make their own. 

The city’s Zoning Adjustments Board recently approved the Berkeley-Albany YMCA’s plans to renovate the building into a place to nurture and mentor 13- to 18-year-olds. 

The project proposal adds a third floor to the building, which will house the YMCA’s administrative offices, and a roof garden overlooking Memorial Park. Solar panels will generate electricity, and the building will be naturally ventilated. 

The renovated building will have a new stucco finish, and the aluminum sunscreens on its storefront will be decorated with the sandblasted words “vision,” “growth” and “voice.” 

A new three-story stairwell will have a glass facade opening onto Martin Luther King Jr. Way. Its concrete stairway walls will project a mural that will remain lit at night. 

Instead of paying $130,000 in rent for office space at its current 2070 Allston Way location, YMCA will be paying the same amount to the teen center to help sustain it. 

The zoning board waived three existing parking spots and five new parking spots mandated by the construction of a third floor. 

The Y plans to start constructing the $5.2 million facility this fall with help from a group of teenagers, officially known as the Teen Task Force. 

YMCA officials decided to form the task force in fall 2007, when PG&E gifted the building to the Berkeley-Albany YMCA. The 8,000-square-foot building is PG&E’s largest corporate contribution to date. The building is valued at $2.1 million, according to a PG&E press release. 

Since then, the task force of eight teenagers—including students from Berkeley High School and Berkeley Technology Academy, the city’s only public continuation school—have been involved in a lot of fundraising, planning, writing formal reports and requests, budgeting, public networking and the selection and hiring of architects and consultants. 

They have been attending the city’s zoning board, landmarks commission and design review committee meetings, lobbying board members to approve the new design. 

At the June 4 Landmarks Preservation Commission meeting, Vice Chair Gary Parson said he hoped the center would serve as a beacon to the city’s teenagers and that more young people would end up there instead of the public safety building across the street. 

Currently, the YMCA has to host teen programs such as Y-Scholars, the Outsiders Club and YMCA Youth and Government in a 400-square-foot space downtown, across from the post office.  

The YMCA hopes to expand these programs and attract teenagers from all economic and social backgrounds—including homeless teens—and help them with college preparation and internship opportunities, among other things. 

The center will also host social events for teenagers in the evenings. YMCA officials said there will always be enough security to control crowds. 

“The project brings me back to a whole different time in my life, when a project like this would have meant so much to myself and others in the community,” Berkeley-Albany YMCA CFO Angelo Gallego told zoning board members. “This is a place where meaningful dialogue will take place. It’s not as much of a playground as it is a place where social interaction can take place [among] the teens and their mentors and the adults in the community to really make Berkeley a better place to live in.” 

John Tidwell, a B-Tech student who serves on the Teen Task Force, praised the location of the new center. 

“Downtown Berkeley is a place where teenagers from all walks of life go,” he said at the zoning meeting. “The teen center will not be for one group of teenagers. It will be for all groups of teenagers. Sadly, a lot of negative things take place in downtown Berkeley, but the teen center will give students a positive place to go to.” 

Julie Sinai, chief of staff to Mayor Tom Bates, told the Daily Planet that the mayor’s office hopes to work with the YMCA to bring homeless youth to the new teen center. Sinai said the city had not built a dedicated teen center in the past because of a shortage of resources. 

Berkeley currently has teen programs spread across several community centers in the city. 

Berkeley-Albany YMCA President Fran Gallati said that the new center was something for which the community had been waiting a long time. 

“Back in 1991, there was a public outcry that Berkeley didn’t have a teen center,” he said. “This is really a watershed moment in Berkeley. This community needs a teen center more than ever now.”

Despite reports from the state Department of Parks and Recreation, Eastshore State Park isn’t about to close, reports Larry Tong, interagency planning manager for the park district. 

“Over my dead body,” said Robert Cheasty, who chairs Citizens for Eastshore State Park, the advocacy group that has helped raise funds for the shoreline park used by countless Bay Area residents and visitors. 

Tong said he has asked the state agency to correct the erroneous reports, which were broadcast Tuesday night on some regional television stations. 

“The department does not provide any funds for Eastshore State Park,” Tong said. “While the parks district may be facing its own funding issues, we continue to fully fund operations at Eastshore State Park. The reports of its death, to quote Mark Twain, are greatly exaggerated.” 

“Everyone will still have access to the shoreline,” said Cheasty. “It’s ridiculous to say otherwise.” 

Russell Grant, the homeless man pictured on the front of the Daily Planet’s July 23 edition, states emphatically that he is not “Holy Man,” as stated in the accompanying caption and story. Other people have called him a holy man, he says, but he would never himself claim to be a holy man.  

An anonymous caller also registered a complaint, stating that Grant has no claim to the title of Holy Man, and that the paper should have checked with the caller first. He should know, he says, for it is he who is, in fact, the Holy Man.

The massive draft environmental impact report on what could become California’s first Las Vegas-style metropolitan casino reveals sharp divisions among Richmond residents. 

But those opinions were gathered four years ago, during an economic boom that has since crested and collapsed. 

Berkeley developer James D. Levine, partnered with a Napa developer, a former Clinton cabinet member and two Native American tribes—one impoverished and the other flush with gambling wealth—plans a billion-and-a-half-dollar casino resort and upscale housing complex at Point Molate. 

Located on one of the last relatively pristine chunks of prime San Francisco Bay shoreline, the “five-star resort” would target wealthy Asian gamblers, Levine told Richmond residents last year. 

This is the third and concluding article in a series on the project environmental review, which is being conducted under both state and federal laws. 

For Richmond, an impoverished city struggling with poverty and crime and dominated by a massive oil refinery, Levine promises his project will bring jobs, stimulus for local businesses and a wide range of civic benefits, not least in the form of a river of ongoing revenues. 

The 5,284-page environmental impact report (EIR) was finally released earlier this month, three years after the initially planned release date. 

Comments from individuals, organizations and public agencies included in the document date from four years ago, when the federal Bureau of Indian Affairs supervised a scoping sessions to gather community comments. 

That hearing, conducted on March 31, 2005, was held to gather questions to be addressed in the draft EIR, which was scheduled at that time for release six months later. 

Speakers from Richmond’s African-American community were solidly behind the proposal, which had gained the backing of 17 local churches—a group that has traditionally opposed gambling. 

African-American speakers praised the project, though the majority of people who spoke were in opposition by a ratio of 27 to 16, including representatives of a variety of environmental groups. 

One of those who spoke was Gayle McLaughlin of the Richmond Progressive Alliance who had been elected to the city council after that body had voted in favor of Levine’s project. 

Now Richmond’s mayor, McLaughlin said she remains opposed to a casino at the site. 

She has since been joined on the council by another casino opponent, Jeff Ritterman, whose presence would have represented a decisive vote in the council’s 4–3 decision to approve the project. 

The council must certify the final EIR, which will include a finding of overriding considerations declaring that the project’s benefits outweigh its negative environmental impacts. The negative impacts which include adverse effects on traffic at the Richmond/San Rafael toll plaza and on a Marin County intersection. 

Letters 

The BIA received 26 letters opposing the project, including several from organizations, and three negative written comment cards submitted at the scoping session. 

Nine supporters sent letters, and five comment cards offered support. Other letters for cities, Contra Costa County and local and state regulatory agencies raised concerns they wanted to see addressed in the EIR. 

Opponents included: 

• Citizens for Eastshore State Park, which called the project “ill conceived and detrimental to the shoreline and the interests of the community.” 

• The Sierra Club, which declared that the casino EIR process was “improper and illegal.” 

• Save the Bay, which stated that the “project is inconsistent with both local and regional plans for the area of Point Molate.” 

• The California Native Plant Society, which said the site, on a priceless piece of the bay’s original landscape, “is unsuitable for such a large-scale development.” 

Of the opposition letters, 11 were identical preprinted form letters with spaces for signatures from a “concerned member of the community.” Several came from individuals who had spoken at the scoping session. No form letters were sent by proponents. 

One strong endorsement came from Don Gosney, who has served as co-chair of the Point Molate Restoration Advisory Board, which was created by the Navy to advise on reuse of the site, a former refueling station for navy ships. 

Gosney described Levine’s proposal as “one of the most innovative proposals imagined that can be an economic engine for revitalization of the community. I see thousands of good paying career jobs with benefits; I see training for many of our residents both young and old. I see tax dollars streaming into our city coffers; I see business opportunities that this community has not seen in a lifetime; and I see a renewed pride in our community that was lost a long time ago.” 

Critics such as George Blair, former owner of Bay Excavators, Inc., worried about the dangers of gambling addiction on an already impoverished community. “Upstream will have all the money, and everyone else will be down the river,” he declared. 

City reference librarian Tarnel Abbott, granddaughter of author Jack London, wrote that she, too, was worried about the impacts of gambling. “My grandfather suffered the effects of a gambler’s dream of hitting the big time; not only did he suffer a personal bankruptcy, but the entire family suffered as a result of his losses.” 

Many of the arguments, pro and con, were the same as those raised during the original scoping session four years ago and reported in this paper on April 4, 2005. (See http://www.berkeleydailyplanet.com/issue/2005-04-05/article/21086.) 

The draft EIR document is available for public review at the Richmond Public Library, 725 Civic Center Plaza, and on the second floor of City Hall, 450 Civic Center Plaza. 

The draft EIR is also online for viewing or downloading at http://www.pointmolateeis-eir.com. 

Anyone with questions about the project may attend either or both of two workshops with technical experts, to be held at 6 p.m. Aug. 10 and 27 at Richmond Municipal Auditorium, 725 Civic Center Plaza. 

Two public hearings soliciting comments to be addressed in the final draft of the EIR will be held on Aug. 12 and Sept. 17 at the municipal auditorium. 

The project also faces a legal challenge from a coalition of environmental groups, though the legal proceedings have been stayed while negotiations are underway.

Twelve-year-old Tayo Ogunmayin may have been running track for just two years, but she is already gaining national attention. An incoming seventh-grader at Oakland’s Julia Morgan School for Girls, Ogunmayin will be participating in the North American finals of the Track and Field Games this Saturday in Hershey, Pennsylvania.  

The program invites 500 of the most talented track and field athletes in North America to participate in a national meet and to develop their skills under the tutelage of expert track runners. 

Tayo is excited about the chance to participate in the competition and also the chance to make new friends. 

“I like to improve myself,” said Tayo. “I like to have that power to meet other people and have fun as well....I am not concerned about what place I get in the competition,” said Tayo, who is participating in the 200-meter event. “I want to break my own record, which is 27.11 seconds.” 

Tayo starting running track when she was in fourth grade at Malcolm X Elementary School, later joining the East Bay Track Club.  

She practices with the club for an hour several days a week and also trains on a treadmill on her own time. East Bay Track Club coach Ralph Walker promoted her to team captain after seeing her commitment and enthusiasm. 

“She is really dedicated and never complains about anything,” said Walker. “She works hard and likes to give back and helps other kids. I think that she is one of the best in her age group in the nation.” 

The National Elite Youth Ranking System, a national database that catalogues young track and field athletes, ranks Tayo eighth in the nation for the 100-meter dash in the 11 to 12-year-old age group. 

Her mother, Tani, said she was surprised by her daughter’s improvement this year, considering that she had been sidelined by a bone fracture for most of 2008.  

“She was off all season,” said Tani. “Most of the year, she began to improve. Then she had two meets in May and July where she did really well. Her 100-meter time improved to 12.58 seconds,” which earned her the eighth-place national ranking.  

Tani said that she has been teaching both her children, Tayo and son Tunji, who is also a track runner, by encouraging them to eat well, drink enough water, and get enough rest. 

“The whole family are track fans,” said Tani. “Both of our kids are track runners. We all love it. I take Tayo to every practice.” 

Tayo says that her stamina has improved over the last few years. 

“In the beginning, I would become very tired,” she said. “After many different types of training, my stamina improved.” 

Tayo said the 2008 Olympic Games got her very excited about track and inspired her to want to compete in the Olympics. She also credits her family, teammates and coach. 

“I made a lot of my friends on the track team,” said Tayo. “A couple of people pushed me farther and made me work harder. I’m really happy that I joined the team.” 

For others considering a track and field career, Tayo has some advice. 

“Never ever doubt yourself,” she said. “If you tell yourself you can’t do something, you won’t do well. But if you are positive and certain of yourself, you will do the best you ever have.” 

Energy snack manufacturer Clif Bar recently announced that it would be moving from Berkeley to Emeryville next year. 

The company says it has outgrown its 59,000-square-foot building. The new 115,000-square-foot space at Emerytech complex includes new offices, fitness center, bike garage, kitchen, day-care center, hair salon, and theater. 

An August 2006 article in the San Francisco Chronicle reported that the Berkeley City Council proposed changing the West Berkeley Plan to allow Clif Bar to expand, but at that point the company had already hired a consultant to look for a new spot.  

Berkeley’s economic development manager, Michael Caplan, said that Clif Bar was not able to expand because the company wanted to undertake several mixed-use projects, which were prohibited by zoning laws, laws made more complicated by the fact that the Clif Bar building straddles two zoning districts. 

“In one room, you could have certain zoning laws which only allowed warehouse in one half of the room, while the other half could only be used for office space,” said Caplan. “The second problem was that they had a desire to do a number of mixed-used projects. All of the proposed projects were difficult to do in that zoning scenario. Berkeley was not able to accommodate their needs. It would definitely have been a challenge for them to do what they wanted to do.” 

Caplan said that company officials were not keen on staying at their current spot.  

“They really wanted to be in another place,” said Councilmember Linda Maio, echoing Caplan’s comments in a phone message. 

Caplan, who met with company officials to search for a new spot, said the city tried to keep Clif Bar in Berkeley, but there were no sites that suited Clif Bar’s needs. Unlike other cities, Berkeley does not have a large amount of money to allocate for redevelopment incentives, said Caplan. 

“We referred them to property owners and developers,” said Caplan. “Ultimately, it was not just one thing. There weren’t any buildings that let them do what they wanted to do.” 

Deputy Planning Manager Wendy Cosin said that the company had never applied for a variance to expand at their Fifth Street location in Berkeley. 

Caplan added that he didn’t think Clif Bar’s move would affect the number of jobs in the area significantly. Clif Bar, which has 185 employees, reported $212 million in earnings in 2008. 

“People who were employed in Berkeley are likely to remain employed in Emeryville, since they are so close geographically,” said Caplan. “I have to look at these kinds of things as regional issues. It’s an opportunity, not a loss.” 

Berkeley Mayor Tom Bates could not be reached for comment by press time. 

Councilmember Kriss Worthington said that the city’s complicated zoning laws may be to blame in Clif Bar’s departure. 

“Power Bar left, Clif Bar left,” said Worthington. “Certainly the city’s zoning processes are very complicated and cumbersome and sometimes contradictory.” 

In August 2006, Power Bar announced its move to Southern California. Immediately after, Clif Bar made the announcement that it, too, would be looking for a new location. 

Initial plans indicated that the company would move to Alameda in 2008. However, the timeline proposed by the developer, Catellus Development Corporation, did not meet Clif Bar’s needs. 

Alameda’s Base Reuse and Community Development manager, Debbie Potter, said the city was disappointed but not surprised by Clif Bar’s decision not to move to Alameda. 

“We were very sorry to have missed the opportunity for Clif Bar to move in,” said Potter. “Our city shares a lot of the same values as Clif Bar, such as green sustainability, fitness, and health.” 

Emerytech complex building developers Ellis Partners, LLC, announced that Clif Bar’s new Emeryville facility would be redesigned with large atriums and “soaring glass-filled ceilings,” which would allow for more energy-efficient light and a data center. Clif Bar is currently applying for a LEED Gold certification, a third-party certification program that uses a national benchmark for measuring how “green” a building is. 

Emeryville officials are getting ready for Clif Bar’s move. 

“We couldn’t be happier to welcome Clif Bar to the Emeryville community,” said Emeryville City Manager Pat O’Keeffe in a statement. “We’ve made a deep commitment to fostering growing, innovative businesses and we’re proud to count Clif Bar among that group.” 

Clif Bar, then known as Calisports Naturals, first opened in Emeryville in 1992, but then moved to Berkeley in 1996 in order to expand.

The Berkeley City Council broke for the summer on Thursday after unanimously approving a $1.4 million loan in Housing Trust Fund money for the 98-unit Ashby Arts Senior Housing project, after City Manager Phil Kamlarz came up with a proposal to replenish the trust fund monies with the sale and loan foreclosure of other properties. 

The proposed sale and loan foreclosure on thoise other fund properties means that, instead of the city wiping out its Housing Trust Fund money with the Ashby Arts grant, additional money will be available in the fall when several other projects come up for review.  

Only Councilmember Susan Wengraf did not vote on the Ashby Arts issue. Wengraf was present at the beginning of the meeting but left mid-session before the Ashby Arts vote came up. Councilmember Gordon Wozniak participated in Thursday’s meeting by telephone. 

In other action on Thursday, City Manager Kamlarz told councilmembers that Berkeley is “likely to lose about $10 million over the next two years” in state funds as a result of the compromise budget-balancing legislation agreed to this week by legislative leaders and the governor, and said he would come back to the council in the fall with proposals for the city to manage the cutbacks. 

The council also approved, on a 7–2 vote (Arreguín and Worthington voting no), a use permit and variance and demolition permit allowing Wareham Development of San Rafael to demolish all but two walls of the former Copra Warehouse at 740 Heinz Ave. and build in its place a 92,000-square-foot, four-story research and development laboratory, warehouse, and sub-surface garage. The Copra Warehouse is a landmarked building, and the Zoning Adjustments Board and the Landmarks Preservation Commission had split on the project, the zoning board approving the environmental impact report and the use permit and the landmarks commission declining to approve the demolition permit. 

Meanwhile, the council moved two controversial items from Thursday night’s agenda to its next meeting in September, including proposals to make changes to the ordinance governing the city’s massage therapy establishments and to revise the permitting process for property owners to build out on public rights-of-way. Councilmember Jesse Arreguín tabled his own resolution to support a constitutional amendment to put the University of California system under legislative authority after council debate indicated the resolution might fail, and also held over until the fall his far more popular proposal to name the I-80 pedestrian-bicycle bridge in honor of former Councilmember Dona Spring. 

The Ashby Arts approval and funding was a complicated matter that was difficult for observers to follow, even with a program, a scorecard, and a thick packet of backup documents. 

Citycentric Investments, the development company founded by Ali Kashani and Mark Rhoades, originally won split council approval for a five-story, mixed-use building on the Ashby and San Pablo avenues site last May (Arreguín voted no, Worthington abstained), but later modified the proposal into an affordable senior citizens housing project “in order,” according to the city staff report, “to address changes in the housing market and to position the project for funding available through the Low Income Housing Tax Credit program and the city’s Housing Trust Fund.” 

Part of the deal between the city and Citycentric Investments for the Ashby Arts Project included a personal guarantee of the $1.4 million housing trust fund loan by both Kashani and Rhoades. 

Aside from bringing over Worthington—who co-sponsored with Councilmember Moore the resolution to approve the housing trust fund money for the project—and Arreguín, who had opposed the original project, the result of the city–developer negotiations brought along Councilmember Anderson, who admitted he had also had some reservations. 

Anderson said that the revised project “reflects a commitment by the city to its senior citizens” as well as “a commitment by this builder and developer, whose entrepreneurial agility resulted in changes that others might have resisted. But [they] stepped up and made the kind of changes that brought this into the rubric of all of us so that we eliminated, in large part, any of the reservations that we had about it, from the commitment to back the loan to the commitment to step up to the requirements of providing the health services for the seniors there. This has been a model for the kind of cooperation that is necessary to produce outcomes like this in difficult times.”  

Public speakers were divided on the Ashby Arts project, with some saying that it would improve a blighted, underdeveloped area, while others saying that the Ashby and San Pablo avenues corner, with its dangerous intersection and lack of nearby open space, was not the proper place to locate a senior home. 

Last Thursday, the Berkeley City Council tabled a measure supporting a bill in the state Legislature that would strip the University of California’s Board of Regents of a certain measure of autonomy.  

The bill, SCA 21, authored by state Senators Leland Yee (D-San Francisco) and Roy Ashburn (R-Bakersfield), would subject the UC system to laws and statutes passed by the state Legislature. Current laws are already in effect for the California State University system. 

Berkeley City Councilmember Jesse Arreguín, who sponsored the resolution, said the measure would send a message. 

“This bill would allow voters to have oversight over their public universities,” said Arreguín. “Given some of the closed-door compensation deals and the fact that many university workers are struggling to support themselves, we want to make sure that the university has some oversight. While I am a proud graduate of UC Berkeley and I do appreciate that the university may be concerned that this would take away some of their power, it will not harm the academic freedom or the functionality of the UC system for the students.” 

However, late Thursday night, Arreguín decided to table the measure after it was apparent that it would not pass. Councilmembers Linda Maio and Laurie Capitelli, as well as Mayor Tom Bates indicated that they did not support the resolution. Councilmembers Susan Wengraf and Kriss Worthington were absent during the vote.  

Councilmember Gordon Wozniak blasted the plan. 

“I don’t see how taking away the autonomy of the Board of Regents solves the problem,” said Wozniak. “Maybe if there was a good argument for the resolution made on the dais, I would support it. However, I don’t think that the executive pay raise scandals at the UC alone warrant a change of structure.” 

At one point during the night, Bates remarked that the UC system was “the worst employer in the state.” 

“However, the state is another out-of-control institution,” said Bates, whose wife, former Berkeley Mayor Loni Hancock, serves in the state Senate. 

During public comment, two union members and one teaching assistant from the university spoke in support of the proposal. Tanya Smith, Local 1 president, UPTE-CWA 9119, argued that members ofthe Board of Regents were more concerned about their salaries than about the welfare of the university. 

“It is very important when talking about the state crisis for the UC to do its part and not fill the pockets of its executives,” said Smith.  

Many UC Berkeley workers feel that this bill is important for their livelihood. 

“After two years of fighting against the university to get a contract, which would bring many workers out of poverty, we have still not been successful,” said a worker who is a single mom with three kids. “The university in the meantime has given executive pay raises and increased perks.” 

Blanca Misse, a UC Berkeley student and teacher assistant who attended the meeting, said that many high school students in Berkeley do not attend UC Berkeley because of fee increases. 

“Every day the university is getting more privatized,” said Misse. “I don’t know a single student that comes to UC Berkeley from Berkeley, because they are always increasing fees. The university belongs to the people of California who pay taxes.” 

However, Councilmember Laurie Capitelli said that, although he agrees that the university has problems, he doesn’t trust the state to do a better job. 

“I am very sympathetic to the union,” said Capitelli. “However, it is ironic that the state Legislature is approving a budget that is cutting education and will raise the tuition at UCs, among other bad things. The irony for me is that we suggest that the Legislature can run the UC better than the regents. I think it will open up Pandora’s box.” 

Adam Keigwin, Sen. Yee’s chief of staff, said that some of the councilmembers were incorrect in their assumption that the state would run or manage the Board of Regents. 

“They did not understand what the constitutional amendment was doing,” said Keigwin. “SCA 21 does not authorize the state to run the UC. It gives elected officials the same relationship they have with the CSU. Regents would still have the same authority. All it would change is that it would allow the people to decide whether the UC would be subject to all laws which pass the Assembly and the state Senate. It would end the era of the UC being above the law.” 

On July 10, UC President Mark G. Yudof sent a letter to the mayor and the City Council urging the council to not only oppose Arreguín’s resolution but also introduce a resolution to oppose SCA 21. 

In his letter, Yudof made claims that SCA 21 would complicate budget issues and also endanger academic freedom. 

“Not only is this legislation unnecessary, it would also impose costs that would exacerbate the fiscal crisis already facing UC and the state,” said Yudof. “SCA 21 could jeopardize the principle of academic freedom that underpins the university’s teaching and research missions.” 

Due to objections from UC and some state senators, SCA 21 is being held in the Rules Committee. Keigwin added that Yee’s office has received more than 6,000 letters in support of SCA 21 and only one letter in opposition from a group called Californians for an Independent UC, “started by family members and friends of the Board of Regents,” according to Keigwin. 

The latest round of proposed state budget cuts to public education did not come as a surprise to the Berkeley Unified School District. 

California lawmakers reached a deal with Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger July 21 to close California’s $24 billion budget deficit by making deep cuts in almost every area, including $6 billion in education. 

In February, the state Legislature passed a preliminary budget that left Berkeley Unified with an $8 million deficit. The governor’s May revision to this budget created an additional $6 million budget shortfall in the school district for the next two years. 

Berkeley Board of Education President Nancy Riddle said Berkeley Unified had prepared its 2009-10 budget according to the May revision, which was similar to the cuts proposed in the legislators’ plan. 

“We haven’t seen the details [of the final budget] yet, but we anticipate it will be the same,” Riddle said. “Unless, of course, cuts are made in different places. We are watching it very closely and if something changes we’ll be ready to pounce.” 

A report prepared by district Deputy Superintendent Javetta Cleveland show that the total cuts in the district from the February budget and the May revision amount to $13.6 million, of which $7.4 million has been addressed with the help of federal stimulus funds, state flexibility funds and budget reductions approved by the board.  

Riddle said the district is still figuring out what the cuts at the county level will mean for its budget. 

District Superintendent Bill Huyett is on vacation and could not be reached for comment. 

Proposition 98 funding 

Although the proposed budget cuts will not eliminate Proposition 98—a voter-approved measure that sets a minimum level of funding for California schools—it will slash $7.6 billion from it, resulting in larger class sizes, canceled summer school, a shorter school year and no new textbooks. The preliminary budget passed in February took away $11.6 billion from public school funding, leading to teacher layoffs, program cuts and other hardships in school districts statewide. 

The legislators’ plan will provide $49 billion for the 2008-09 fiscal year and $50 billion for the 2009-10 fiscal year in total Prop. 98 funding, according to the California Department of Education. 

“I fully recognize that given the magnitude of our state fiscal crisis, the pain for schools could have been worse than that created by the agreement that was reached,” said state Superintendent of Public Insruction Jack O’Connell. “Nevertheless, the reductions that our schools must absorb now will heighten the challenge educators face in trying to increase student achievement and close the achievement gap, and I fear that the last decade of progress in statewide student test scores will be interrupted.” 

The new state budget proposal also excludes the California High School Exit Exam requirement for disabled students, to provide school districts with some funding flexibility, a move O’Connell called unfortunate. 

“Many thousands of students with disabilities have passed the exit exam, and many more will continue to take and pass this test,” he said. “Eliminating this requirement for students with disabilities who are on a diploma track does nothing to help prepare these students for success after high school.” 

The fate of Golden Gate Fields, the Bay Area’s last remaining horseracing venue, remains uncertain as parent Magna Entertainment continues to undergo bankruptcy proceedings in the United States and Canada. 

In a filing with the U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Delaware, creditors of the ailing company claim it illegally siphoned off $125 million in assets to other companies controlled by Magna Entertainment chief executive Frank Stronach. 

Representatives of Stronach’s company have denied the allegations, according to Frank Angst, in an article he wrote for Thoroughbred Times last Thursday, July 23. 

The court has already approved the sale of four Magna tracks, including Santa Anita in Southern California. 

Magna has stated in court that Golden Gates Fields is also for sale, though no price has been listed. The court earlier rejected a so-called stalking-horse bid which would have allowed Stronach’s MID corporation to acquire the Albany track.

In spring and summer 1934 San Francisco experienced one of the most dramatic labor confrontations in 20th century American history. 

Longshoremen who handled cargo on the busy San Francisco waterfront shut down the port there in early 1934, protesting poor working conditions, low pay, and unfair hiring practices. Negotiations with shipping interests failed and the strike exploded into violent confrontations around the July 4th holiday. Two men were shot and killed by police. 

Republican Gov. Frank Merriam ordered the National Guard to occupy and reopen the waterfront. The longshoremen turned to their allies in labor and a regional general strike was called in response. Thousands of workers in many services and industries walked off the job, idling everything from manufacturing plants to grocery stores, theaters, and streetcar lines throughout the Bay Area, including much of Berkeley. 

Although Berkeley was on the sidelines, many locals played a role, and the community also directly experienced a disturbing spasm of vigilante violence as the strike came to a close.  

There was at least some sympathetic Berkeley picketing during the waterfront strike and a few confrontations with “scab” workers, but many in the community seemed to side with management. Berkeley remained a Republican town in summer 1934, with more than 32,000 registered Republican voters, just under 17,000 Democrats, and only 456 Socialist and 51 Communist voters, according to figures in the Aug. 2, 1934 Berkeley Daily Gazette.  

Merriam’s mobilization of the National Guard brought troops to Berkeley’s streets. “Not since the memorable World War days of 1917 has Berkeley taken on the military aspect of yesterday afternoon and today as National Guard troops assembled here,” the Berkeley Daily Gazette reported July 6, 1934, following Merriam’s mobilization order. 

“The…headquarters of the Fortieth Division, National Guard, bristled with military precision. Young soldiers, some of them in their teens, stern of face and disciplined, were to be seen in and out of the Armory on Addison Street….behind the Armory a field kitchen was set up.” 

Across the bay, “there are troops from Berkeley, Oakland, Gilroy, San Francisco, and San Jose quartered in the Ferry Building and the pier sheds stretching for miles on both sides,” the Gazette reported a few days later, on July 9. Berkeley also supplied the prominent Guard commander, David Prescott Barrows, professor of political science, former president of the University of California, and later namesake of Barrows Hall on the UC campus. 

Major General Barrows had served in the American Expeditionary Force that landed in Siberia after the Russian Revolution. There “he foresaw earlier than most the danger of the spread of conspiratorial communism, and was to fight it from this time forward,” his official UC obituary would later read.  

During the late 1920s and early 1930s his address was on posh Parkside in Berkeley’s Claremont district. One may imagine him crossing the bay by ferry, flanked by admiring newspapermen and efficient staff officers, ready to rout Bolsheviks at their beachhead and perhaps get home in time for dinner. 

Though the primary action was across the water, National Guard trucks fitted with machine guns and police escorts also rolled out from Berkeley’s Armory at noon on July 17, 1934 in what the newspaper called a “military parade” to “tour through all East Bay Cities as assurance to citizens that the military is ‘on the job’.” 

After the strike, General Barrows wrote, in the July 23 Gazette, that the California National Guard had “been engaged not in warfare but in military action to protect our own people. ... Radicalism, Communism, or Fascist expectation, organized or disorganized, cannot prevail.”  

To the waterfront strikers and their allies, the Guard was taking sides on behalf of management, and suppressing legitimate labor protests in the depths of the Depression. In contrast, much of the press and many public officials chose, like Barrows, to portray the waterfront leaders as dangerous subversives, and the subsequent General Strike as a direct threat to public order. 

Several East Bay mayors, including Berkeley’s Edward Ament officially proclaimed themselves opposed to the evil of denying innocent children fresh milk, and busied themselves organizing local committees to make sure food and fuel would be available if transportation and businesses shut down, although the strikers had pledged that necessities would be delivered. 

The Reverend Earl N. Griggs of the University Lutheran Church appeared to reply to the mayors in a sermon where he said strike conditions might have been averted with earlier attention to Depression problems of labor and the poor. “Why are the little children that are going to be hungry tomorrow any more sacred in the sight of God than those that have been hungry for four years?” 

Some Berkeley businesses closed, others stayed open. The strike lasted only a few days, and the longshoremen accepted federal labor arbitration, ending the waterfront struggle. But that was not the end of confrontations.  

Some strike opponents turned to retaliation, apparently motivated both by exaggerated fears of communist subversives, and dismay at the way labor unrest had rapidly spread, threatening established power structures.  

In several cities, including Berkeley, vigilantes struck back against real and imagined Communists who, they alleged, had ignited and perpetrated the labor unrest as a means to revolution. “Aliens”—epitomized by longshoreman activist and Australian immigrant Harry Bridges—were also demonized as shadowy instigators and potential insurrectionists. 

In some respects it was both a replay of the 1919-20 anti-Communist hysteria that had resulted in the infamous Palmer Raids across the country, and a prelude to the post-World War II McCarthy era. In one series of San Francisco raids “more than 300 suspected communists, aliens and agitators” were arrested and charged with “vagrancy,” the Gazette reported in July 1934.  

Cal alumnus and Roosevelt administration official General Hugh Johnson, head of the National Recovery Administration, dropped into Berkeley July 17 and delivered a polemical address at the Greek Theatre in which he said that, when confronted with Communist agitators, people “would act to wipe out this subversive element as you clean off a chalk mark on a blackboard with a wet sponge.” 

The means to deliver that accounting was already at hand. The Gazette had editorialized on July 15 that during the strike “the police force of Berkeley has been materially augmented by tried, experienced and capable men…and virile, red-blooded Americanism is being displayed on all sides.” 

“Businessmen with World War experience and reserve officers of the Regular Army were asked to organize a force sufficient to meet the emergency and await orders,” the paper retrospectively noted Aug. 3.  

“Using army organization methods, a group of citizens was enlisted in almost every block, each with a leader…the entire personnel was sworn in as emergency police…streets were patrolled by Berkeley Nationals (the name chosen by the organization), who were armed with clubs.” 

As the strike ended, “the Berkeley Nationals, already more than 2,500 strong, will be definitely continued, it was announced, to combat all un-American and subversive influences,” the paper reported July 19. 

“Individual members are deputized by the city council and are pledged to maintain law and order and combat any and all efforts at violence of any kind.” Mayor Ament, offered a “cordial invitation to others to join in this work.” 

The evening of July 19, a peaceful meeting of locals sympathetic to the strike was held at Berkeley’s First Congregational Church. There were some mysterious men in the audience who threatened one radical attendee, but when the police were called, Berkeley Nationals showed up instead to escort the men away. 

Later that night, widespread property violence was unleashed on Berkeley’s streets when “almost simultaneous with similar raids in San Francisco, Oakland and San Jose, civilian groups here swooped down and wrecked two headquarters of Communists and left warnings at the homes of alleged radicals,” the Gazette reported Friday July 20, 1934. 

The euphemistic “warnings” were actually bricks with anonymous threats attached thrown through windows. 

“Badly damaged were Comrades Hall, also known as the Finnish Workers Hall, 1819 Tenth Street, and the Communist headquarters and reading room at 2600 San Pablo Avenue” (apparently on the southwest corner of San Pablo and Parker, where the Missouri Lounge now stands). The interiors of both buildings were vandalized and furnishings wrecked. Some of the ax handle-wielding attackers reportedly wore “B.N.” armbands. 

The Berkeley police claimed “the police system of radio patrol cars was ‘paralyzed’ by the scores of calls which literally flooded the police switchboard. Scores of reports were received almost simultaneously because of the rapidity and apparent systematic manner in which the raids were staged.” 

“It is deplorable this taking of the law into their own hands by citizens, however well meaning they might be,” said Berkeley Police Chief J. A. Greening. “Law and order must prevail and it is too bad that, just as all matters brought about by the strike apparently had been peacefully settled, that Berkeley should be the scene of such disorder.” There were persistent charges, though, that the police either knew of the attacks in advance or avoided responding quickly when they were taking place. 

On July 25, a “mass meeting” was held on the steps of Berkeley High School to protest the vigilante attacks. About 250 attended, “including large numbers of the merely curious and law enforcement agencies,” the paper said. A small advertisement placed in the Gazette that day announced the meeting and asked, “Will you tolerate mob rule?” 

Speakers included a student from the Pacific Unitarian School of the Ministry, an attorney for the ACLU, a representative of the Finnish Workers’ Association, and a number of Socialist Party representatives. They criticized “the police, city officials, vigilantes, capitalists and others…” One called those who participated in the July 19 Berkeley raids “skunks, skulking scoundrels, rats, and cowards…”  

Some Berkeley residents whose houses had been targeted also came forward to protest to the City Council on July 24. Mrs. J. Autio, 1473 Ordway St., said her home was attacked, although her husband was a worker at the Mare Island naval shipyard. Velijo Perala, 1016 Cedar St., “stated that he was not affiliated with any Communistic organization, although he had received a warning to leave the City.” 

Mayor Ament, “after listening to the denials of the attack victims stated that the council regretted the action of the group which sponsored the active campaign against alleged Communists.” But he also praised those who had volunteered in the Berkeley Nationals, and announced, “All of our special activities are now demobilized.”  

Councilmember and businessman Walter Mork, a leading member of the local Finnish community, “demanded that a thorough investigation of all phases of the attack be made.” An investigation was promised. But the next day, the city manager left town for a previously planned three-week fishing trip “somewhere in California.”  

Local anti-Communist activity continued. On July 23, business, civic, and veterans groups in Alameda County organized under the leadership of District Attorney Earl Warren, who called for “a movement against trouble making aliens and any others who by acts of violence or seditious language seek to break down the ideals of our governments.” The Board of Supervisors ordered the county librarian to purge “any and all literature pertaining to Communism.”  

On Aug. 7, Finnish Hall representatives protested the July 19 attacks in writing to the City Council, saying “irreparable damage has been done to the cause of liberty and justice unless swift action is taken to find and punish those responsible for the outrage…You as members of the council, we hold responsible for immediate action against all vandals involved in this crime.” 

“The efforts of the chamber of commerce and the police to whip up a frenzy against our organizations is a part of the common drive of the bosses to destroy all labor organizations, to keep down wages, to build up their monopoly profits,” wrote Karl Paganen, the organization’s secretary. He added a call to arrest “the guilty ones who are well known to the police.” 

As summer drew on, the ACLU aided Finnish Hall in a claim for damages due to police inaction during the vigilante attack. In fall, 1934, the City of Berkeley paid a settlement to help repair the building. 

Although the waterfront strike itself failed to win its immediate aims, labor organizing took off on the West Coast, and by mid-century San Francisco was a stalwart union town. A local branch of the ACLU solidified, in part as a result of the Finnish Hall case. 

Saturday, July 18, 2009, the eve of the 75th anniversary of Berkeley’s vigilante convulsion, I happened to be in San Francisco at the Ferry Building, epicenter of the 1934 waterfront confrontations. No working cargo ships, authentic longshoremen, or National Guardsmen were in evidence along the utterly transformed Embarcadero, no longer a working waterfront but a busy playground for tourists and locals. 

There’s some good historic signage, but I could find nothing about the events of 75 years before, except one photo, dated 1934, in an inside display. Grinning workers stack boxes of lard in what appears to be a staged scene. It’s blandly captioned, “Two longshoremen return to work following a strike.” 

Outside, a Berkeley Farms dairy truck pulled up to make a delivery to the upscale eateries in the Ferry Building. Mayor Ament might have been proud; the fresh milk for the children finally got through and it had Berkeley’s name on it. 

Sexual battery arrest 

UC Berkeley Police arrested a 21-year-old man on suspicion of sexual battery and kidnapping after he allegedly molested a 17-year-old Asian student at Ehrman Hall. 

Police said the incident began about 2 a.m. Sunday, July 26, as the young woman and a friend were studying in the hall’s ground-floor lounge. 

Four men, including suspect Giovanni Elampini, walked into the lounge, apparently intoxicated. 

According to the report released by UCPD Chief Victoria L. Harrison, the men began flirting with the two women when one of men took the victim’s keys and refused to return them, then picked her up and groped her. 

“The suspect and his companions took the victim to her room where the suspect again fondled her,” according to the police statement. 

After 10 minutes of pleading by the woman for the men to leave, the four finally left. Shortly thereafter, police took Elampini into custody and booked him. 

Peoples Park assault 

Campus and city police are looking for a group of five or six men who assaulted a man at People’s Park early Friday morning, July 24. 

According to campus police, the victim walked into police headquarters at 5:49 a.m.. to report that he had been punched and kicked by the group as he lay on the ground following a drinking bout with friends. 

After the fists and feet stopped flying, one of the assailants finished the assault by striking the victim’s head with a skateboard. 

The assailants were last seen sauntering away from the park southbound toward Dwight Way. 

After he completed his story, police took the victim to Alta Bates Summit Medical Center for treatment of his injuries.

Shattuck Avenue fire 

The Berkeley Fire Department responded to a two-alarm fire at the site of an abandoned used car sales lot on Shattuck Avenue and Derby Street Wednesday afternoon and were able to extinguish it within 30 minutes 

Deputy Fire Chief Gil Dong said that the fire had threatened an adjacent apartment building but that nobody had been injured. Six car ports and a single-story building on the former car lot—located next to the UC Storage building—burned down, sustaining damages of $25,000, Dong said. 

The site has long been occupied by homeless people, Dong said. He said that investigators were trying to determine the cause of the fire. 

Berkeley police closed down Shattuck Avenue between Carleton and Ward streets and rerouted buses as firefighters battled the flames. Dong said no firefighters had been injured. 

Tubman Terrace fire 

Firefighters evacuated about 60 tenants from Harriet Tubman Terrace Apartments when a fire broke out in a second-floor unit July 17. 

Deputy Chief Dong said Berkeley firefighters immediately issued a second alarm after arriving at the Adeline Street facility because the building houses elderly and disabled residents who might have had difficulty evacuating. 

The source of the flames turned out to be kitchen cabinets set ablaze after a pot of cooking oil, left unattended on a stove, boiled over and ignited. 

“No firefighters were injured, but two residents were taken to a local emergency room for treatment of shortness of breath,” said the deputy chief. 

The fire caused about $6,000 in damage to the apartment, said Dong. 

HazMat calls 

It’s been a hectic week for the Berkeley Fire Department’s hazardous materials team, starting with a morning call on July 22. 

“The HazMat team had just finished training when they got a real-life call,” said the deputy chief. 

A caller reported that three buckets containing three different unknown chemicals had been left near the railroad tracks at Channing Way. 

Arriving at the scene still clad in their protective suits, firefighters were able to determine that the containers hadn’t spilled, nor were they emitting any noxious vapors. 

“The team determined that they were chemicals used for fertilizing marijuana,” said Deputy Chief Dong. 

The compounds were turned over to the city Public Works Department’s toxic materials team for disposal. 

The next call came three days later in the form of a fire report in a second-floor apartment in the 2400 block of Dana Street. 

Arriving moments after the 3:47 a.m. call, firefighters found a mattress, coffee table and carpeting burning inside a second floor unit. 

The source seemed to be an assortment of chemicals and powders. 

“HazMat identified the chemicals as consistent with those used in the manufacture of methamphetamine,” said Deputy Chief Dong. 

Meth labs are notoriously volatile, and after the fire was out, Berkeley’s Bravest turned the scene over to Berkeley’s Finest for investigation of a probable felony. 

The final incident was still underway as the Daily Planet neared deadline Wednesday, July 30. See “Chemical Spill Forces REI Store Evacuation,” Page One.

Telegraph Avenue legend B.N. Duncan died in June at the age of 65. I first met B.N. Duncan in 1979 at Krishna Copy on the corner of Telegraph and Dwight. He was xeroxing copies of Tele Times, a little homemade magazine he published. And I was xeroxing copies of Ass Backwards Comix #1. So we were on the same page, literally, from the word go. Geez, I must have been 23, so Duncan was 36. He looked like a weird old man with his disheveled hair and thick horn-rimmed glasses and ratty old clothes. He looked like your weird uncle that you kept in the basement out of sight. He was the arachetypal weirdo artist. 

At the time he lived in a dusty little hotel room on the fourth floor of the Berkeley Inn. His room was just beginning to clutter up with his boxes of artwork. He had one or two friends who were just as weird and alienated as him. Aside from that, he had almost no social life. Duncan spent his whole life on the fringe of society, a lifelong SSI recipient. I figured we were both a couple of losers who would spend our lives xeroxing 20 copies of our latest cartoons and mailing them out to an indifferent world. “Outsider art” he called his work. In fact, he had a strong identification with Van Gogh, and figured his work would never be fully appreciated in his lifetime. 

In the late 1960s he had gone completely nuts. He was completely alienated and couldn’t find any place to fit into society He’d hear voices—six distinct characters who would carry on private conversations in his head. He ended up getting locked up in a mental institution. The head psychiatrists told him he was a hopeless case and would probably have to spend the rest of his life in the nut house. So that shows you how far he came to have the magnificent life he had. 

He published the first 20 issues of Tele Times—“Telegraph’s Tight Little Monthly”—in relative obscurity, with print runs of about 100 copies. In truth, Duncan probably lost money on every single publication he ever put out by himself. He was one of the first publishers to focus on homeless street people and so-called ordinary people, treating them the same way that most mainstream publishers treated celebrities. Then he began coreseponding with famed underground cartoonist R. Crumb. They immediately clicked. Crumb recognized a fellow traveler, calling Duncan “the quintesssential underground cartoonist.” And Crumb should know. Duncan published an interview with Crumb and his wife in Tele Times, and that opened up whole new worlds for Duncan. For Duncan was an artist’s artist. Though his work was vastly under-appreciated by the general public, he was revered by many of the greats in the cartooning field; people like Kim Dietch, Dan Clowes, Peter Bagge, and Harvey Pekar. Maybe with guys like Duncan, who are so weird and unique, it just takes time for the world at large to catch up with them. 

In 1989, on a whim, I got the crazy idea to publish a photo calendar of Berkeley street people. I wanted to take the raw and quirky work Duncan was producing with Tele Times and put a bit of a commerical sheen on it. It was an immediate local hit. And for the next 15 years, from 1990 to 2004, we would annually publish the Telegraph Avenue Street Calendar. We got written up in all the local newspapers and Dan Rather did a national feature on it. So Duncan began getting some long-overdue recognition. 

“When I was the manager of Comic Relief in Berkeley I used to see Duncan a lot,” said Kristine. “Frankly, initially he gave me the creeps. A half-dozen conversations later and I was looking forward to his next visit. He was the first person to show me Dick Briefer Frankenstein and that alone puts him in the pantheon. Later, when he asked to borrow some money, I thought, ‘Well, there’s $10 I’ll never see again,’ and mainly was concerned that he wouldn’t come by the store any more. He repaid me within a week. I regularly lent him money and always got it back, usually with a nice note on a xeroxed page of awesome cartoon art. What a sweetheart. He taught me not to judge people by their crusty tan corduroy jackets, and I’m grateful.” (But watch out for most of those guys in crusty corduroy jackets; Duncan was the one-in-a-thousand exception to the rule.) 

And in a way, I thought that was the secret of why Duncan struck a chord with so many people. Duncan was so obviously weird. The rest of us are probably just as weird, we just try to hide it. And by the end of his life, Duncan’s social circle included people from all walks of society, from successful lawyers and famed artists to bums on the street, and everyone in between. 

Our working relationship was akin to Laurel and Hardy. Duncan was the skinny guy and he’d always screw up (“Gee, Ollie...”). And I was the fat guy and I’d always rage and bluster at Duncan (“This is another fine mess you got us into, Stanley!”) and screw things up even worse. But we always forgave each other afterwards. I used to say about our friendship: “Duncan, you’re one of the few people strong enough to withstand me.” And after every joint success no matter how great or small—whether it was producing yet another artistic masterpiece or merely scrounging up enough dough to buy the next pack of cigarettes—we’d always high-five and say: “Yet another successful Backwords and Duncan collaboration!” 

His last few years were spent in failing health. Forty years of smoking and drinking had finally caught up with him (Basic 100s and Old English malt liquor, natch). In his last week they had him in the cancer ward at Alta Bates hospital. So I knew it was trouble. The last time I saw him, I knew it was just about over. I sat there in his hospital room and cried and cried. For 30 years Duncan had always been out there on Telegraph Avenue whenever I was there. But now it hit me for the first time that he would never be out there again. I went from giving him pep-talks about “Hang in there! Hang in there!” to “Let it go! Let it go!” You know? “God loves you, and you’re going to heaven,” and all that crap. But while I sobbed and weeped, Duncan laid there on his hospital bed and he was stoic the whole time. He always admired tough guys. And I always thought he was doing Humphrey Bogart and James Cagney in his head. (“I never met a dame who didn’t understand a good slap in the face!”) And in a way, that was the secret of our artistic chemistry. I supplied the emotional and Duncan supplied the intellectual. Though in truth, we both had plenty of both sides. Duncan was no cold-blooded intellectual, he had plenty of heart. And I could talk a line of intellectual BS with the best of them, in between my emotional tantrums. But we were both strong where the other was weak. Duncan was like an anthropologist of the gutter. And he studied the Berkeley street people, and all of life, like a scientist would study an exotic tribe in New Guinea. Duncan would place his latest artistic specimen under his microscope and study it, as if looking for clues. He’d hold the slide up to the light and say to himself: “Hmmm. Now what does this tell me about this cock-eyed human life of ours?” 

Duncan was one of the most relentlessly creative people I’ve ever met. For the 30 years that I knew him, he was constantly working on a new artistic project. And unlike so many artists, when he got an idea, he almost always saw it through from beginning to completion. Even on his death bed, when he could barely speak, gasping and hacking for air, Duncan talked excitedly about three different publications that would be publishing his work: “I’m gonna get a review in the next issue of Mineshaft. And Claire Burch is putting out a book of my writing from Street Spirit. And Terri Compost is going to publish some of my photos and drawings in a book about People’s Park!”  

And his last words to me before he drifted off into a fog of morphine were: “Every day is a triumph!” 

B.N. Duncan had been a fixture at the corner of Haste and Telegraph for so long that the word “fixture” seemed to fit him well. He seemed as permanent as the street sign or as we once thought of Cody’s Books. His Telegraph Avenue Street Calendar, produced with longtime friend Ace Backwords, documented a street scene that was rapidly succumbing to the erroneous business and city view that people came to the Avenue to shop, not to experience its colorful denizens. 

I came to love Duncan with his deep, resonant “Feel free to look at anything you like” greeting to visitors and townies alike that were looking at his collection of comics, calendars and videos, produced by local artisans. Even if they found nothing to buy, they always found a man with a keen interest in them and the human condition in general. The calendar he co-produced had the wonderful effect of showing people that we walk by and ignore everyday as something special and worthy of note and even just a tad bit famous. I was always amazed how many students bought his calendars to send back home to show the family and friends what a wild and original place they were calling home for the next four years or so.  

I will always be grateful to Duncan for including me in that eclectic mix and goading me to be something maybe just a little bit bigger and better than I was before. I know a lot of people felt the same way and when we found out that Duncan had cancer a few years back it was very much as if a family member was in peril. That summer Moby Theobald and I took Duncan to the Scottish Games in Pleasanton. There was this huge tent proclaiming “Family Duncan.” Being a old hand with the members of my own clan, I brought Duncan in and introduced him to the folks there. I was moved by the emotion I could see in his face as they sat him down and gave him a cold drink, and was happy that he stayed with them most of the afternoon swapping stories. And they say you can never go home. 

After that my wife asked Duncan about his health and he denied that he had ever had the big “C.” He never wanted us to fuss over him or waste time not discussing the bigger issues of life. But lately it was very clear that something was wrong. First he broke his leg a few months back. Alta Bates put him out without even the cheapest of wheelchairs. His love of being amongst his friends on Telegraph Avenue drove him to try to make it up there leaning on the shoulder of his good friend Richard. He pulled this off for awhile, but again he fell, breaking a hip. His cancer-ridden bones just couldn’t hold him up any longer. He seemed to be passing away, but again he rallied. 

This time Alta Bates sent him to a care home, but in a matter of a couple of days he mercifully died quietly in his sleep. In his honor Ace Backwords continued setting up his table on the corner of Telegraph and Haste—something I found strangely comforting. A week or so later, a memorial was held at “Duncan’s Corner.” What a group that was—neighborhood people, homeless people, naked people... pretty much the whole gamut of our beloved Berkeley characters. Duncan would have loved it and would have been snapping pictures and taking names.

At eight in the morning on Monday, July 20, 10 Alameda County sheriffs arrived in their patrol cars in front of the tan house on the corner of Tenth and Willow in West Oakland, the oldest African- American neighborhood in the city, and one of the oldest on the West Coast. The renovated home is surrounded by an iron fence, and the sheriffs poured through its open gate and up the stairs. 

Tosha Alberty had just left for work, for her job as a transportation services coordinator for Alameda County. Her children were still at home. Sheriffs told her adopted son Christian, a 9-year-old with autism, still in his undershorts, to get dressed. Alberty’s daughter Sharquita rushed to collect the bottles and diapers she needed to take care of her 9-month-old baby Zmylan. All of them were then hustled out of the front door, down the steep steps, through the gate in the iron railings, and onto the sidewalk. 

Sheriffs had threatened to evict the family before, an action stymied when a local locksmith, seeing that he was about to shut the family out of their home, had refused to cooperate. This time, however, a more compliant locksmith drilled out the door locks so the family couldn’t get back in. Other workmen nailed sheets of plywood over every window to keep the Albertys out. And a new brass and steel padlock was fastened to the gate. 

Tosha Alberty and her husband James, a cancer survivor, had lived in the home with four children and two grandchildren for four years. Tosha had grown up in the same neighborhood, and had been househunting for a long time when she found the place in 2005. Although she was unemployed at the time, her mother had died and left her a little money. She talked with a real estate broker, who pushed her into a non-conforming loan with no down payment, with First Franklin Mortgage Services. 

“I thought my loan was for $520,000, and that I’d be paying $2800 a month,” she recalls. “But I discovered that it was for $550,000, and the payment was much more.” Alberty got a union job with the county, though, where her husband had also worked. She barely made the payments. But then the monthly installments ballooned to close to $5000. “I knew I couldn’t do that,” she says. “But when I tried to renegotiate them, they said that since I’d been paying before, they wouldn’t help me. So I stopped paying.” The loan went into default. 

First Franklin, which moved from making normal mortgages to non-conforming loans back in 1994, boasted on its website that “First Franklin makes it easy for mortgage brokers to find flexible, hassle-free home loan solutions.”  

The lender was bought by Merrill Lynch in 2006. Merrill Lynch closed in last year’s meltdown, and was bought for $50 billion by Bank of America. Last week Bank of America reported second-quarter profits of $2.4 billion, it’s second straight profitable quarter since the mortgage crises started, despite losses from bad loans. No wonder. The bank received $45 billion in bailout money from the Troubled Asset Relief Program. 

None of that money is going to the Albertys though, despite promises that the bailout would enable the renegotiation of loans, and keep people in their homes. Bank of America, however, did spend $2.3 million in 2008 on lobbying Congress, and another $1.5 million this year. The bank wants flexibility on how it spends that TARP money, with fewer restrictions on huge bonuses for executives, on fees for credit card holders, and even on home mortgage lending to other Oakland residents. 

When First Franklin’s “hassle-free solution” became her eviction, Alberty joined ACORN’s Home Defender campaign. Twice in May the sheriffs came to put the family out, and twice they met a resolute group determined to keep the Albertys from being dumped on the sidewalk. That’s undoubtedly why they swooped down without warning on July 20, just after Tosha had left for work. 

ACORN Home Defender Martha Daniels, who herself had been threatened with a foreclosure eviction, held an impromptu press conference that afternoon in front of the padlocked iron gate. She vowed, “We will find a way to put Tosha and her family back into this house. There is no justice here.” Representatives of city council members and a county supervisor announced their support. 

As Tasha Alberty leaned on her brother and cried, though, her father Charles wondered, “There’s something wrong with this country. My daughter just needed a house for her family. What was she supposed to do?” he asked. 

In the city of Annecy, in Savoie at the beginning of the French Alps, there’s a beautiful Alpine lake in the middle of town. A grand city park surrounds the lake with everything there to delight a child: boats, merry-go-round, playground, picnic tables. When we were there last week I saw that there was also an elementary school and day care center right there in the park—how nice, I thought, it must be for the children who are students in the middle of a children’s paradise.  

Then I noticed a modest wooden plaque next to the door of the school, with a few sentences in French painted on it. Some sort of historical marker, I thought, and walked over to read it.  

I didn’t take notes—I couldn’t even tell the people with me what it said, or explain why I seemed to have tears running down my face. Roughly, I remember that it said that on a certain day in perhaps 1944, four girls (names listed, ages between 8 and 13, like my granddaughters who are traveling with me) were taken from this very school and put on a train to Auschwitz.  

Imagine that, if you will. You dress your daughter, braid her hair perhaps, and send her off to school one day with her bookbag, and she never comes back. All the mothers and fathers who leave their children at the Annecy elementary school on the lake can see this modest plaque every day, in case they are in any danger of forgetting the fragility of human life.  

While I was in London I had lunch with my old college friend Susan Hiller, who currently has a show at the Jewish Museum in San Francisco that is another reminder. Reviewed a couple of weeks ago in these pages by Peter Selz, it consists of photographs taken all over Europe of the streets where Jews used to live before they were taken away to extermination camps. Susan told me that although she’s had many major shows with a historic bent (her piece on Freud is in the permanent collection of the Tate Modern in London), she hasn’t been interested in topics like this until recently. “I don’t come from a religious family,” she says. “My father wasn’t even Bar Mitzvah’d.” 

But she’s gotten concerned about the fate of Israel, and with exploring the meaning of her Jewish identity. Although she’s an American, she’s lived in London with her British husband for several decades. She was one of the original British organizers of Jews for Justice in the Middle East, formed in response to Israel’s invasion of Lebanon. Now she’s preparing a show for exhibition in Israel featuring the work of women, including some Palestinian women. She reminded me that many of her friends in Israel are in the same position as many Americans were under Bush: strongly critical of their nation’s leaders but powerless to do anything about it. She said that she’d always supported a two-state solution, but that now she feared even that would be impossible without enormous and prohibitive removal of populations. Then she said that she just couldn’t bear to talk about it any more, so we dropped the subject. 

Many friends of Israel are starting to feel that way. Even though close to half of the current citizens of Israel are opposed to its current course, just as many of us here were in this country under Bush, they fear that they can’t do anything about it any more. They are in despair. 

That’s what makes the ongoing campaign of vituperation against the Daily Planet by a few individuals who pose as friends of Israel very sad. We’ve gotten reports from our sales staff that yet another missive has been sent to our few remaining advertisers, threatening dire consequences if they don’t pull their ads by Aug. 1. A couple of them have already canceled, one saying plaintively that it would just be better never to mention Israel again. 

We appreciate the nice ad taken by Jewish people supporting the paper, which we have been able to see on the Internet. It’s people like the signers who will eventually save Israel, if it’s still possible to save it. We plan to continue our open-door policy as long as we’re around, because really there’d be little point to doing any of this if we had to be censors on top of everything else.  

The publisher has jokingly suggested that we should auction off our position on Israel. A bid of something like $200,000, perhaps, could guarantee no mention of Israel in the Planet for six months. Unfortunately, a large percentage of our reporting staff and columnists might quit if we did that. We’re still working on shifting from being advertiser-supported to reader-supported, but that’s an uphill struggle.  

In the long run, completely suppressing mention of alternatives for Israel, in this paper and elsewhere, is bound to have disastrous consequences for the future of the country. If the country is to survive, it will need the best ideas of all kinds of people, not just the party line spouted by a militant group who has managed to take over the dialog for the time being. We’d like to continue to be able to do our small part in making exploration of alternatives possible, but it’s getting harder. 

UC FOOTBALL MONEY 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

Has no one noticed the $18-plus million that the UC Board of Regents allocated to the football program at the same session as the one where the employee furlough plan was adopted? 

Is this money from existing, dedicated funds? Or is it part of the annual general budget? Why not have the entertainment effort “feel the pain” as the furloughed employees are being required to do? In effect the furloughed employee could be paying for fun and games of alumni. A cut back in the extramural program would bring the message to alumni, “Yes there is a problem. Help.” 

Don Reynolds 

• 

TEACHERS 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

In response to M. Wheeler’s July 23 letter: Open, tactful debate keeps the blood flowing in a free press. I stepped out of bounds by offending a devoted teacher with a limerick. Our excellent teachers deserve the highest respect, and I apologize for the negative effect of my words. 

Ove Ofteness 

• 

THE HOMELESS 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

Why are homeless folk in this great land of ours walked on, around, over, and just generally stigmatized? Could it be that they’re...un-American? How dare they be here with us, penniless, just lying there, instead of joining in on scoring the American dream like those off-the-boat immigrants we heard about in school, the ones who built industries, cities, and cheese factories, and then became philanthropists? 

Mercy is a national virtue. Don’t we hop up to help every time our lessers in foreign lands get buried in earthquakes, drowned in tidal waves, bugged by pandemics? Well? If we won’t help our own, or at least let ‘em sleep in peace, let’s do the right thing: turn them into pet food. 

Gotta go; I just heard about a vacant bush under an overpass. It’s “clean” and sort of dry, and I’ll get to hear the roar of success on the roadway above, as big trucks and cars and whatnot zoom past on their way to something better, somewhere. 

Phil Allen 

• 

HEALTH INSURANCE 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

Do we need it? Yes, more than 40 million Americans are without health insurance. Healthcare costs are bankrupting the insured. More Americans daily lose their coverage. If we do nothing it will only get worse, not better. This is embarrassing for a developed nation. Other developed societies have appropriate healthcare for all citizens without the throat-clutching fear of being one medical emergency away from the loss of a home and/or personal bankruptcy. I am a retired elementary school principal whose employer paid for health insurance for 37 years. I have prostate cancer, and if my employer had not provided retirement health care benefits until I’m 65, I would not have been able to get health insurance. This is not right. 

Those who profit from the existing system have fought against it for more than 20 years and today are again bankrolling the fight against any change to the status quo at the rate of $1 million per day. 

Provide affordable healthcare to all Americans and spread the cost. Provide and expand choice to all Americans, including a public insurance program. Reduce costs via efficiency, reform and re-structuring incentives. Regulate insurance providers to require coverage of all Americans not just those without pre-existing conditions. 

Delay is an obstructionist tactic. Pass reform in 2009. History is watching. The American people cannot wait any longer. 

Bob Kelly-Thomas 

• 

WALKING DISTANCE 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

Low-income senior and disabled housing should be within easy walking distance of a grocery store (preferably with indoor ATM), a drugstore (i.e. pharmacy), bus stops, a library, a bank (if grocery store does not have indoor ATM), and a senior center. Put these in your own priority order. 

Helen Rippier Wheeler 

• 

MEAN TO HOMELESS? 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

I am writing in response to the article “Is Berkeley Mean To Its Homeless?” This article aired the grievances of a few homeless people in Berkeley (complaining about the quality of free meals, no one gives them money, etc.), and offered little to nothing in regards to what people who are homeless see as a solution; how do they propose to solve the problem of homelessness here?  

There was only one person mentioned who made any suggestion of the homeless population giving back to our society and our city by picking up trash, or helping those in need of help, in order to receive goods or services for their labors. 

I live in Berkeley, and must honestly admit that I do not like being asked for money everywhere I go. I don’t even like to be solicited to buy a Street Spirit newspaper, since I don’t see people selling these newspapers as a sustainable solution to our homelessness problem. It seemed the people in the article who were homeless by choice were implying it was the responsibility of others to support them and their chosen lifestyle. Why are others “mean” if they don’t give them money? 

We need solutions that address the systemic problems, such as alcoholism, drug abuse, and mental health issues. An individual handing someone some change or feeding them a free meal does nothing to address the underlying problems that are bigger and not as easily addressed. An article in the Daily Planet dealing with potential solutions to the homelessness problem and suggesting ways for the community to work together towards a solution would be appreciated in the future.  

Personally, I feel Berkeley is meaner to its Republicans than it is to the homeless….not that I’m a Republican, of course! 

Laura Figueroa 

• 

JUSTICE FOR CHENEY 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

Justice for Cheney! What does Dick Cheney need to do before the Department of Justice will prosecute him? Aren’t any of these illegal activities enough to warrant at least an investigation? Illegal torture, illegal murder, war profiteering, lying to Congress, lying to the nation, setting secret energy policy, deceiving the United Nations, exposing the identity of a covert CIA agent, illegal wiretapping, elimination of habeas corpus, and allowing the tragedy of Sept. 11, 2001 to kill thousands of U.S. citizens. 

Cynthia Papermaster 

• 

JEWS AND ARABS 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

Hasan Fouda has it all wrong in his July 23 letter. In writing of “Israel’s apartheid laws,” he seems unable to grasp that Jews and Arabs should have an equal right to live in the area of the former Palestine Mandate, between the Mediterranean Sea and the Jordan River. However, whereas Arabs live in Israel, go to universities there, play in the national soccer league, appear together with a Jew at the Eurovision competition and vote for Arab parties and be elected to Israel’s parliament, Jews are told they can’t live in what is supposed to be this new “Palestine” state. And during the earlier 1948-1967 period, Arab terror of the fedayeen and the PLO, founded in 1964, sought to prevent Jews from living in the state of Israel before it began administering additional territories gained in defending itself from Arab aggression in the year 1967. 

Yisrael Medad 

Israel 

• 

CHINESE IMMIGRANTS 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

California’s state Legislature did the right thing by apologizing for your state’s past treatment of Chinese immigrants. Hopefully the federal government will apologize for the Chinese Exclusion Act.  

Chuck Mann 

Greensboro, NC 

• 

CFLs VS. LEDs 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

Matt Cantor’s statement (July 23) that LEDs use about one tenth the energy of incandescent lamps may be true for the people he is advising in Orinda, but it is not likely to be true for most of the people here in Berkeley. No, I am not claiming that light bulbs behave differently in Berkeley. Its the fixtures that tend to be different.  

Older homes in Berkeley have a lot of surface-mounted fixtures which spray light out in all directions. Many upscale modern homes have fixtures that are recessed into the ceiling, which catch and absorb light that goes up or to the sides from the lamp. Two thirds of the light from a regular incandescent or CFL can easily be lost in this type of fixture, with the result that a focused LED really can be 10 times more efficient than a regular incandescent.  

However, you can also double the overall efficiency in a recessed fixture by using a reflector incandescent (R or PAR lamps), and you can get about the same factor of 10 from a reflector CFL (but you have to check that it is rated to take the heat in the recessed fixture or it will fail early). If you have older open surface-mounted fixtures, like many of us in Berkeley, CFLs are still somewhat more efficient (and a lot cheaper) than LEDs, although that may not be true in another year or so. 

Robert Clear 

• 

CUBA REVOLUTION 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

This year marks the 50th anniversary of the Cuban Revolution. The United States stands alone in this hemisphere stubbornly refusing to open diplomatic relations with Cuba. Later this week, I will join 250 Americans to travel to Cuba to openly defy the 50-year old travel ban imposed by the United States. We travel to Cuba with high hopes that President Obama will finally lift the embargo and travel ban against Cuba. 

Cuba continues to be vilified by the U.S. government and the media. While our economic crisis is forcing people to go without healthcare, people in Cuba have access to free and excellent medical care. While college expenses are rising dramatically for us, college education is free for the Cuban people. 

But the Cuban people face great hardships due to shortages caused by the U.S. economic embargo. I know that U.S. policies against Cuba will not change overnight and President Obama faces an uphill battle to change anything. I hope our efforts to defy the travel ban will spur my government to lift the embargo, end the travel ban and open up long overdue relations with Cuba, our island neighbor. 

Annie Johnston 

• 

PARKING FEES 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

I couldn’t agree more with Allen Michaan’s recent commentary on the impact on small businesses of Oakland’s outrageous new hike in parking rates to $2 an hour—and, I must add, the impact on residents and consumers who keep small businesses alive.  

Raising parking rates and extending them into the evening with “state-of-the-art” meters that keep the money we don’t use? What a striking contradiction in these times when the president and the politicians pledge support for small businesses and urge citizens to spend more.  

Meanwhile Berkeley’s downtown has been losing small businesses and customers for years, as residents are forced go to neighboring towns and big-box stores for consumer needs. How does this solve the city’s need for revenue? How does raising parking rates encourage local shopping and prevent small businesses from closing? Buses and BART may work for commuters and people who cannot drive, but certainly not for local and senior residents who need to buy goods and services. 

As a—so far—independent senior in Berkeley, I drive locally for food and household goods and for medical, dental, and personal needs. As a longtime North Berkeley resident, I avoid downtown like the plague, as do my friends. I avoid the nearby Gourmet Ghetto after 9 a.m. when the meters take over—except for Andronico’s and Longs Drugs, which provide parking. I avoid College Avenue, Telegraph Avenue, and the entire UC Berkeley perimeter. Fourth Street? Forget it. It’s largely for the gentry who can afford high-priced restaurants and shops. Even Cody’s didn’t make it there. 

Monterey and Hopkins is a notable exception. It’s a popular neighborhood shopping area where people come from all over to patronize its small family businesses (many there for decades), the Monterey produce market, and the Berkeley Horticultural Garden—a lovely, green placeholder amid homes and stores. And guess what? There are no parking meters in the area. People of all generations walk and shop and eat in a friendly small-town environment. 

Solano Avenue, one parking spot past the Berkeley border, draws many Berkeley customers to its shops and restaurants because of its welcoming 90-minute diagonal parking with no meters to feed.  

Will Berkeley go the way of Oakland and raise parking rates to $2 an hour? Will working people and poor families continue to drive to other cities or in big-box stores for necessities? Will gentrification take over all of Berkeley and make it unlivable for working and retired residents and taxpayers?  

Marianne Robinson 

• 

HONDURAN VIOLENCE 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

The author of this piece, while critical of the Obama administration, makes the same mistake as the Obama administration: At no point does he explain how the ouster of Zelaya was illegal, or could in any way be referred to as a “coup.” 

The two deaths are tragedies for which there may never be acceptable explanations. That is the nature of violence, be it by a mob or a trooper’s nervous trigger finger. But they do not transform Honduras’ constitutional crisis into a “putsch.”  

  Like many Americans, I am completely flummoxed by my country’s reaction to these events. If the history that this author refers to should have taught us anything, it is to uphold the rule of law. Our failure to support the new government in Honduras merely keeps us on the same tragic road we have too often taken before. 

Don Teeter 

Orangevale, CA 

(Berkeley native) 

• 

900-POUND GORILLA 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

Riddle—where does a 900-pound gorilla sit? Anywhere it wants to. What happens if we substitute our Sturdy Golden Bear for that unfairly maligned gorilla? The bear is poised to sit in upper Strawberry Canyon, an ecological treasure, never supposed to have anything built there in the first place. But as you read these words, coming our way is a triple-whammy—a UC Atom-bomb Industrial Park: Helios (BP) biofuel project, weighing in at a half-billion; Lawrence National Radiation Lab expansion, now touting an “experimental” laser, “Bella,” so named by George Orwell—it could have come from Star Wars; plus a super conductor computer facility, so all the Dr. Strangeloves can conveniently hang out in a formerly pristine canyon. 

Wait a minute. My friend Dr. Pangloss (Voltaire’s Pollyanna character) demurs. He is for Science—and to keep our country “strong.” You mean strong like that gorilla, sits on whomever it wants? I hate to tell you, Dr. Pangloss, that’s exactly what Dr. Strangelove said—played by our own beloved Edward Teller. 

Dr. Pangloss is indignant: “Are you seriously comparing Alma Mater, with its roster of Nobel Laureates—(whom I won’t tarnish by mentioning their Cold Warrior/A-bomb CV’s)—to a gorilla?  

No, ha, ha gorillas are peaceful creatures. They’ve never designed a firecracker, let alone an A-bomb. Maybe our bear is more like King Kong; instead of taking apart Manhattan, he (she?) is raging instead through upper Strawberry Canyon. 

Now I don’t believe in arguing with King Kong or Dr. Strangelovers. Look what happened to Robert Oppenheimer—he lost out to Dr. Strangelove, who seemed to know which side his paranoia was buttered on.  

I’d just as soon be rooting for the football team. 

Go King Kong! 

Neal Blumenfeld 

• 

OBAMA, GATES, CROWLEY 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

It appears that the Obama-Henry Gates-Sgt. Crowley controversy has been resolved to everyone’s satisfaction, much to the relief of those of us who were fed up with the media’s obsession with this matter. Oh, yes, it’s all smiles and politeness now—even getting together for a beer. 

Nonetheless, I’m still haunted by the mug shots and disturbing picture of Henry Gates, cowering like a trapped animal in the doorway of his own house. That these images should be aired night after night, damaging the reputation of this brilliant Harvard University professor, renowned scholar and author is surely an indictment of television and the media for their lack of sensitivity and common decency. We may in time forget this unfortunate incident, but Professor Gates may well be forever identified with those mug shots! 

Dorothy Snodgrass 

• 

BERKELEY MEADOW 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

Now that East Bay Regional Parks District has turned the Berkeley Meadow into its private preserve, it has become clear to me that this once beautiful open land will never again be accessible to the public.  

This is a pork barrel project and EBRPD intends to milk it all the way. Beyond the ominous signs and fences, I really don’t see anything going on in there. The time is now to organize a resistance to this takeover. 

We cannot afford to lose this open space. There is so little of it left.  

If they are successful in this takeover, what is next? Possibly the Virginia Street side next to the meadow and north of that all the way to Albany. This is not progress. This is greed and lust for power and if this is not confronted now, there will be no place for the community to enjoy. All that will be available is some tiny pristine place where you can’t do this and can’t do that. No dogs allowed, no this and no that. 

Randall Broder 

El Sobrante 

• 

DICK GREGORY 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

A headline on the top of the page of the July 23-29 issue of the Berkeley Daily Planet reads, “Mort Sahl and Dick Gregory at San Francisco’s Rrazz Room, Page 16.” The article itself, however, is only about Mort Sahl who was interviewed by the reporter. 

This is a disappointment. Dick Gregory has led a very unusual and significant life. A comedian and civil rights activist, Dick Gregory fasted on liquids for two years to protest the Vietnam War. He is an ethical vegetarian who protests the ill treatment of animals. It would have been interesting to read about him. 

Joan Clair 

• 

HONOR THE GOOD 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

Regarding Mr. Allen-Taylor’s July 2 column: Being progressive is all very well and good, but what would it really hurt to honor and celebrate those young people who do not use profanity, who do not smoke or drink, or use drugs, who do not use weapons, who mind their manners, and who carry themselves with dignity? What would that really hurt? 

John Madonna 

Oakland 

• 

DE LA FUENTE 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

It’s real funny that Oakland Councilmember Ignacio De La Fuente is the vice president of the Glaziers, Molders, and Plasterers Union Local 164B, who are working with Pacific Steel in Berkeley. There has to be a conflict of interest because he is working with a company in Berkeley as well as being a councilmember in Oakland. 

De La Fuente had the audacity to blame environmentalists and the residents in Berkeley for Pacific Steel’s layoffs. He claimed they were pressuring Pacific Steel to spend millions of dollars for new technology for cleaner air. It is easy for him to make the allegation when he does not live near the steel mill, while residents there were having health problems due to the toxic emissions and odors that the Pacific Steel plant emits. 

The people in Berkeley have a right to clean air, and it seems to me that De La Fuente cares more about profits than people’s health. 

Billy Trice, Jr. 

Oakland 

• 

UC POLICE CHIEF 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

Mitch Celaya’s tenure as police chief starts with a criminal investigation which will end his tenure as police chief.  

I am pleased to announced that the law offices of Robert J. Beles have joined the Autism Spectrum Liberation Front. Anne Beles is representing the law firm in an investigation into lies perpetrated by Mitch Celaya and the UC Berkeley Police Department. Also under investigation are officers Sean Aranas, Zoe Garlick, and Mike Miceli.  

I am pleased to announce that the deputy district attorney in the case, Scott Jackson, has accepted the inclusion of the Beles Law Firm into the investigation into Mitch Celaya. 

I am pleased to announce that the Alameda Appeals Court has accepted the inclusion of the Beles Law Firm into the criminal investigation of members of the UC Berkeley Police Department and its new chief, Mitch Celaya. 

Autistic people must defend themselves from the police. Autistics are seven times more likely to be abused by police officers than neuro-typicals. This isn’t just about me, this is about stopping police aggression on autistics. 

The Beles Law Firm, as well as the Autism Liberation Front are going to change the rules for autistics, so we can get a fair chance at a rigged game. 

Mitch Celaya messed with the wrong autistic. His disdain for the disabled woke a sleeping dragon. 

Nathan Pitts

Though it ends our embarrassing episode with IOUs, California’s new budget is a giant leap backward. 

To meet Republican demands, it categorically avoids taxes. Thus, it is left with only one option: cut, cut, cut. Unfortunately, such haphazard slashing does have consequences. Though Republicans claim to be fighting “waste, fraud, and abuse,” their plan will do real harm to real people. As it ignores revenues and relies on cuts alone, it will cripple even the most basic of services.  

For example, education will be placed on the chopping block. Our K-12 system, already 47th in per capita funding, will lose $4 billion. UCs, slated for a 9 percent fee increase, will also face the axe: together with CSUs, themselves looking at a 20 percent hike, they will be deprived of $3 billion. Far from investing in students, the budget throws them under the bus. It handicaps them in the emerging knowledge economy, tarnishing the future of our Golden State. 

Also under siege are cities and counties, from which the state is raiding $4 billion. Local governments need this money, and they will be devastated by its loss. They will be forced to reduce police, emergency, and fire services, and some may even file for bankruptcy. To avert this nightmare, 180 cities, from San Jose to Los Angeles, are actually considering legal action. 

But perhaps the most brazen cuts are aimed at social services. CalWORKS, our welfare-to-work program, stands to lose $528 million in the coming year. Healthy Families, which provides health insurance to low-income children, will be slashed another $124 million. Even in-home supportive services for the disabled will lose $226 million, forcing 39,000 off the system. 

Cutting these programs makes little economic sense. Since they qualify for federal matching funds, their removal would pull much-needed cash from our economy. For instance, Washington pays three-quarters of the cost of CalWORKS.  

Moreover, cutting them is morally questionable. These services, from unemployment to health insurance, are needed now more than ever. During a recession, the last thing we should do is shred our safety net. 

Though reductions were inevitable, Sacramento’s refusal to consider taxes was disappointing. Taxes fund valuable investments in our future, and we need them to function. While balance must be found, right-wing zealots went too far. They ignored new, common sense revenues which could have offset cuts and improved our outlook. Though such reasonable taxes were proposed, none were included in the final bill.  

One measure, supported by 75 percent of Californians in an April Field poll, would have placed a $1.50 fee on cigarettes. In addition to raising $1.7 billion, it would have reduced smoking and saved lives. Moreover, it would not have hurt businesses. Tobacco is a luxury item, not a business expense. 

Another proposal would have generated $1 billion by placing an “extraction” fee on oil drilling. Such a tax is not only reasonable but overdue—California is the only oil-producing state without one. The budget forgoes such a fee, sparing oil companies despite its call for shared sacrifice. 

The budget’s cuts to education, local governments, unemployment, and health care would be painful under any circumstances. However, they are especially so because they could have been mitigated. Reasonable, common sense fees on cigarettes and oil companies could have softened their impacts, all without threatening businesses. 

With a few modest taxes, we could have taken a balanced path. We could have used painless fees to minimize painful cuts. Instead, when forced to choose between services and cigarettes, we regrettably picked the latter. 

Ariel Boone is UC Berkeley Associated Students senator; Nik Dixit is policy director for Cal Berkeley Democrats; Mia Pskowski is magazine editor for Cal Berkeley Democrats.

I was one of several commentators who penned an opinion piece for the July 9 Berkeley Planet which criticized Lawrence Berkeley National Lab (LBNL) for their fast-tracked and inadequate review of potential hazards from their proposed BELLA laser-accelerator facility.  

By issuing themselves a “No Danger To the Public” environmental assessment unlike a normal EIR review under the NEPA-CEQA federal and California statutes which allow citizens a chance to inquire, learn and comment on any development in their area, and by issuing it to themselves at this time when many folks are on vacation, LBNL has once again demonstrated arrogant disregard for the well being of neighbors. The brief comment period for the assessment has already ended, so there is no point in anybody sending anything now because it will be ignored. 

The proposal to erect another accelerator facility deserves extra scrutiny at this time because an independent expert scientific consultant hired at Berkeley taxpayers’ expense revealed that LBNL had under-calculated the amount of dangerous radiation Berkeley citizens living outside the lab’s perimeter received from past accelerator operations. The consultant, B. Franke from IFEU of Germany, was hired after LBNL refused to cooperate with the Berkeley’s first consultant, IEER, an American scientific outfit, to evaluate operations at LBNL’s controversial Tritium Labeling Facility which has been closed. 

In the July 16 Daily Planet, former Berkeley Environmental Commission Chair Elmer Grossman took issue with some of my points and I leave it to the reader to decide who’s blowing blarney here. The Tritium Facility first came to the public’s attention years ago when two papers, one by a post-doctorate student, measured dangerous levels of tritium in surface water in Albany and Kensington, and another by a post-graduate student measured dangerous tritium levels in vegetation at the Lawrence Hall of Science Children’s Museum, which sits just north of the facility’s chain-link fence. I stated that the Tritium facility was dumping clouds of radioactive tritium 10 feet from the Children Museum’s back play area. The emission stack was 10 feet inside the fence at the Tritium Facility’s property. The corner of the museum building is 130 feet from the stack. Numerous times when I went to the back of the museum to photograph the stack, I witnessed adults and children outside in the back recreation area which was eventually made into an environmental science exhibit. 

Then, like now, the public had access to the back where the tritium stack was unloading its invisible, tasteless, odorless killer cloud. I really do not know why Mr. Grossman would quibble 10 feet versus 130 feet as I wouldn’t feel that much safer in either case. 

    The two research papers triggered public reaction and a radiation monitor was placed inside the Lawrence Hall of Science to calculate tritium content in the museum air. The monitor showed levels that exceeded EPA safe levels for adults which made the Hall of Science eligible for Super-fund clean-up. The monitor was immediately removed. Since then, the national deciders on radiation exposure, the American Academy of Sciences in their Biological Effects of Ionizing Radiation 7 report, have concluded that there is no safe exposure to anyone. Children have always been assessed as more vulnerable to long term ill effects from radiation exposure. Mr. Grossman in the recent past has called for the re-opening of the Tritium Facility and thus has become the only environmental board member I have ever heard of who supports the re-opening of a controversial polluting facility. Before the BEIR 7 report he could hide behind the now discredited ‘threshold’ theory, but now that threshold has been debunked, his call to reopen a facility which made an adjacent children’s museum Superfund eligible is unconscionable. 

   Concerned folks should contact Berkeley Councilmembers and Congressmember Lee and demand an EIR for the BELLA laser. 

Mark McDonald is a Berkeley resident.

As a frequent visitor to the East Bay from San Francisco, I make a point of picking up your publication regularly. In the latest issue, I was amazed at the number of diatribes against Palestinians and “self-hating Jews.” I am perplexed by the negative energy channeled towards your publication just because you have dared to air dissenting (and therefore apparently unpalatable) views. 

Because I live in the Bay Area, I am privileged to listen to such programs on KPFA as Flashpoints, Democracy Now, and other news programs that give more than just the blind pro-Zionist viewpoint. And I’ve read such excellent books as Jewish Fundamentalism in Israel (penned by two Jews) and Helen Nathan’s The Other Side of Israel and such documentaries as James Langley’s Gaza Strip. In addition, I’ve read many of the excellent columns by Gideon Levy in Haaretz and am a regular reader of Robert Fisk, who has regularly reported from the Middle East for decades. 

I think that all of us understand that there are many nasty, corrupt Palestinians—just as there are many nasty, corrupt Israelis and many nasty, corrupt U.S. citizens. On the other hand, there is no comparison in scale between the most severe attacks by the Palestinian resistance has done with the horrors and devastation visited on Lebanon and Gaza by the Israeli military. Inside Israel itself, there are many who will acknowledge this. Palestinians lack bombers, white phosphorous, cluster bombs, the bulldozers to demolish homes and thousand-year-old olive trees, the ability to construct huge walls, and the ability to search Israelis and Israeli homes at will. Nor do they have hundreds of nuclear warheads. Or receive an astonishing $3 billion in U.S. aid every year. 

In short, the power disparity between the two sides is so large as to make any comparison impossible. The Palestinians today are largely a product of a half-century of misguided Israeli policies. Unfortunately, many American Jews (both secular and religious) have all too often given the Israeli government a pass. Some have done this because they are neoconservatives; some because they are uninformed or misinformed or both; and some because they have sensed this is the prevailing view, and they go with the flow. Baah! 

I would urge ardent Zionists to reconsider their carte blanche endorsement of the path Israel is ploughing. Thus far (as with Western policies in the Middle East as a whole) these have proven disastrous. Of these, the illegal settlements stand out as particularly wrongheaded. The resources I have detailed above are available to one and all. Being uninformed is a lifestyle choice! 

Rather than trumpet Zionist views, such religious and secular American Jews might well put their efforts towards redirecting the mindless consumerism that has colonized the minds of many of their brethren and re-channel it towards the social justice-oriented movements that have long characterized contemporary Judaism. That energy should also be redirected towards resolving the numerous social inequities within Israel itself, a “democracy” where Arab Israelis and Reform Jews alike find themselves discriminated against. 

Harry S. Pariser is a San Francisco resident.

If you voted for Obama believing he’d be a better president than John McCain, then you have no reason to be disappointed.  

Then again, if you voted for Obama believing he could actually correct all the wrongs he cited in his campaign, then either it’s too early to tell or you expected too much.  

The momentum of the herd of problems Obama inherited, like stampeding cattle, cannot be turned around with one shot of executive action, no matter how powerful it is or well aimed. Real change takes time. Even so, the record of recent occupants of the Oval Office suggests that actions taken in the early months tell a lot about what eventually developed; the first moves are the most revealing. So, what can we conclude after six months? 

Scan the context. There are a thousand and one things demanding President Obama’s attention, some deemed urgent—universal health care, the plunging economy, closing Gitmo, leaving Iraq, subduing the Taliban in Afghanistan and Pakistan, arresting the spread of nuclear weapons—others appear less urgent—reforms in immigration, education and energy policy, eliminating DADT, setting pollution standards, holding the previous administration accountable for mendacity and malefactions. 

  The great jubilation and hope of hundreds of thousands of people gathered the day after the election in Grant Park, Chicago to celebrate Obama’s victory was shared by millions across the country. Such extreme joy inevitably fades. 

  For example, on that same day, Nov. 5, 2008, Pulitzer Prize-winning author Alice Walker addressed an open letter that began “Dear Brother Obama” and ended, “In Peace and Joy.” The letter was suffused with loving advice summarized in urging the brother to preserve his soul as a prerequisite for being “a credible leader.” Eight months later (July 2009) the same author addressed an open letter that began “Dear President Obama” and ended, “With loving kindness and despite the gravity of the subject, Joy.” That grave subject is identified and encapsulated in the fourth paragraph: 

“Ringing in my ears is something I thought I heard you say: America does not torture. And if this is true, now, under your watch, this letter is unnecessary. I also thought I heard you say indefinite detention without charge was gone with the wind of George Bush’s administration. Was I wrong?” 

The contrast between the first letter’s unrestrained loving advice and the second’s unvoiced subtext of disappointment is apparent.  

  It would take super-human wisdom to order the multitude of problems President Obama faces and if he had the genius to do it, then the order chosen would no doubt be susceptible to change, to trial and error. There are just too many problems in too many areas. Multidimensional chaos is not easily quieted by linear triage. 

  Where do we stand? Did we who voted for Barack Obama get what we voted for? Sure, he was obliged to hang onto the tails of dozens of tigers bequeath to him by George W and not surprisingly up to now none have been caged. Is it, then, too early to tell? 

  Perhaps not. Certain acts stand out and although they do not merit ecstatic applause they do indicate Obama’s direction and his style. 

  The direction, sad to say, differs ever so slightly from the one set by at least four of his predecessors: our values are universal values on which we must rely if we are to lead the world and solve its problems. From this basic principle Obama decided to send more troops to Afghanistan; to withhold from the public some photos of torture; to not release and not prosecute some prisoners; to order some soldiers to remain in Iraq. And at home he decided that some financial institutions must be saved, others left to die out, that forty-some million must get government paid health insurance and the rest covered by the insurance industry.  

  Bush based foreign policy on the belief that other countries could not solve their problems unless they “…go about it in the same way as the United States” (Reference Eric Alterman, The Nation, July 6). Consequently, any country that is not with us is against us.  

  Obama, on the other hand, does not divide the world. In Cairo, on June 4, he was conciliatory: “The cycle of suspicion and discord must end” and up-front: “Just as Muslims do not fit a crude stereotype, America is not the crude stereotype of a self-interested empire.”  

  When it comes to style, Barack is very nearly the opposite of George. Barack is smart, eloquent and confident; he writes books. George was dull, inarticulate and insecure and boasted of not reading books. George spoke in simplistic terms: Iran was evil, Hugo Chavez (Venezuela) was a dictator and Evo Morales (Bolivia) a socialist. But Obama shook hands with Ahmedinejad and thanked Chavez for the gift of a book.  

  George made a big deal of declaring the mission in Iraq accomplished although the nature of the mission was unclear even after its accomplishment. And he never admitted to mistakes. 

  Where Bush was provocative, Obama is flexible; where Bush was divisive, Obama is appeasing. This aspect of Obama’s style is on display even in a molehill event made mountainous: he offered one hand to Harvard professor Henry Louis Gates, Jr. and the other to James Crowley, the policeman who “stupidly” arrested Gates in his own home. Generally, Obama seems to view all opponents as potentially cooperative. 

  Style, the manner in which actions are taken, is a combination of background, training and experience. Intelligently deployed style always overlaps with substance, in some areas more so than in others. For instance, style is essential in Alice Walker’s profession, less so in Obama’s,  

  I am disappointed with what the man I voted for has done—I confess I expected too much—but I greatly admire his style. If he becomes the “credible leader” Alice Walker wants him to be, if Obama’s imprint on history lifts us out of the mess we’ve been in for so long then it will have been facilitated, I think, by his unique style. 

Marvin Chachere is a San Pablo resident.

In the past month, two seeming unrelated events have turned Central Asia into a potential flashpoint between an aggressively expanding North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) and a nascent strategic alliance between Russia and China. At stake is nothing less than who holds the future high ground in the competition for the world’s energy resources. 

Early this summer, the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) predicted a sharp drop in world oil reserves, which energy expert Michael Klare says means that the “era of cheap and plentiful oil is drawing to a close” and is likely to result in “a new era of cutthroat energy competition.” 

In early July, after a full-court press by Washington and an agreement to increase its yearly rent, Kyrgyzstan reversed a decision to close the U.S. base at Manas, thus allowing the United States a powerful toehold in the countries bordering the oil- and gas-rich Caspian Basin. 

While Manas is portrayed as a critical base for the ongoing campaign against the Taliban and al Qaeda in Afghanistan, the war in Central Asia is less over “terrorism” than it is over energy. “Never reading the words ‘Afghanistan’ and ‘oil’ in the same sentence is still a source of endless amusement” says the Asia Times’ Pepe Escobar, author of Globalistan. 

Escobar, who has coined the term “Pipelineistan” to describe the vast network of oil and gas pipelines that “crisscross the potential imperial battlefields of the planet,” sees Afghanistan as strategically placed between the Middle East, Central and South Asia, “at the core of Pipelineistan.” 

As Escobar points out, “It’s no coincidence that the map of terror in the Middle East and Central Asia is practically interchangeable with the map of oil.”  

As the old joke goes: It’s not all about oil; some of it is about natural gas. 

For most Americans and Europeans, Afghanistan appeared on their radar screens shortly after the 9/11 assaults on the World Trade Towers and the Pentagon. But according to Escobar, three months before the 2001 attack, the United States, Iranian, German and Italian officials got together in Geneva and discussed toppling the Taliban because it was “the proverbial fly in the ointment” in a scheme to run a $2 billion, 800-mile natural gas pipeline from Turkmenistan to Karachi, Pakistan via southern Afghanistan.  

According to the Pakistanis, the United States developed a plan in July for launching attacks into Afghanistan from bases in Tajikistan.  

Following the collapse of the Soviet Union, NATO moved aggressively to fill the vacuum left by the demise of the Warsaw Pact. One time Soviet allies Romania, Bulgaria, Poland and the Czech Republic, along with the former Soviet provinces of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania were recruited. The Ukraine and Georgia are currently up for membership. 

According to Escobar, one of NATO’s first forays in the energy war was the Balkans. 

While NATO represented the Yugoslav war as a fight to liberate the Albanians in Kosovo, Moscow and Beijing viewed it as an opportunity for the Albanian Macedonian Bulgarian Oil Corporation (AMBO) to build a $1.1 billion pipeline to bring Caspian Basin oil to the West, thus bypassing Iran and Russia 

The AMBO pipeline—due to open in 2011—will transport Caspian Basin oil via Georgia, Turkey, Bulgaria, Macedonia and Albania. The pipeline is protected by the huge U.S. “Bondsteel” base in Kosovo, “The equivalent of a giant immobile aircraft carrier, capable of exercising surveillance not only over the Balkans but over Turkey and the Black Sea region,” says Escobar. 

Certainly the AMBO pipeline, as well as the current Baku-Tblisis-Ceyhan (BTC) pipeline, makes little economic sense. It would be vastly easier and cheaper to send the oil through Iran. 

“How could Russia, China, and Iran not interpret the war in Kosovo, then the invasion of Afghanistan (where Washington had previously tried to pair with the Taliban and encourage the building of another of those avoid-Iran, avoid-Russia pipelines), and finally Georgia (that critical energy transportation junction) as straightforward wars for Pipelineistan?” Escobar asks. 

For every action, however, there is an opposite and equal reaction. 

In 2001, Russia, China, Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan and Tajikistan founded the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), which now has observer status from Iran, Pakistan and India, and growing relations with the 10-member Association of Southeast Asian Nations, formally a U.S.-dominated alliance. 

Unlike NATO, the SCO is a regional organization, not a military alliance, but one—counting observers—that embraces a growing percentage of the world’s GNP, and 75 percent of both the world’s energy resources and global population.  

However, the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO) is a military alliance that, besides being made up of all of the SCO members, also includes Belarus and Armenia.  

Last February CSTO created a collective rapid reaction force, which Russian President Dmitry Medvedev says, “will be just as good or comparable with NATO.” The force will consist of a Russian airborne division and air assault brigade, a Kazakh air assault brigade, and battalions from each of the other members, excepting Uzbekistan. According to Russian expert Ilya Kramnik, the collective action force “will give CSTO a quick tool, leaving no time for third parties to intervene.” 

The only “third party” capable of intervening in Central Asia is NATO. 

In many ways, Beijing is the lynchpin in this 21st-century “great game,” because China is weathering the current worldwide depression better than most countries. While its exports have taken a beating, the Chinese have successfully fallen back on their enormous internal market to take up some of the slack. As a result, China recently opened the aid spigots to nations in the region. 

In June, China loaned Turkmenistan $3 billion, which will give it a stake in the Turkman’s enormous Yolotan Osman gas field, rumored to be the world’s largest. The Turkmenistan loan also benefits Moscow by underwriting the Russian oil company Roseneft, and the pipeline buildier, Transneft. Kazakhstan got a $15 billion loan, giving China a 22 percent share in Kazak oil production.  

According to former Indian diplomat and current Asia Times commentator M.K. Bhadrakumar, after years of tension between Moscow and Beijing, the two countries are burying that past and “steering their relationship” in the direction of a “strategic partnership in the overall international situation,” rather than competing over energy resources. 

This past April, Russia and China signed a $25 billion oil agreement that will supply Beijing with 4 percent of its needs through 2034. The two countries are currently negotiating a natural gas deal. 

Beijing is planning an almost 4,000-mile, $26 billion Turkman-Kazakh-China pipeline to run from the Caspian Basin to Guangdong Province in China. Included in the deal is a proviso to keep “third parties”—NATO bases—out of the country  

In the meantime, Russia is paying premium prices to lock up Kazakh, Uzbek, and Turkman gas. It is also negotiating to buy more Azerbaijani oil, which if successful, could end up bankrupting the western-controlled BTC pipeline that runs through Georgia.  

Writing in Business Week, S. Adam Cardais, former editor of the Prague Post, says that Russia is “doing its damnedest to keep Europe out of Central Asia,” and that Russia and China “may have already outmaneuvered Europe.” 

But Washington is hardly throwing in the towel. The Manas coup is a case in point, and the Obama administration is increasing aid to Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan. Apparently the gas pipeline project from Turkmenistan to Pakistan that fell apart shortly before the United States invaded Afghanistan has also been revived. 

In short, the Central Asian chessboard is enormous, the pieces are numerous, and the stakes are high. Pipelineistan is not limited to the Middle East and Central Asia. It exists wherever gas and oil flow, from the steamy depths of Venezuela’s Oronoco Basin, to the depths of the South Atlantic off the coast of Brazil.  

“Oil and gas by themselves are not the U.S.’s ultimate aim,” argues Escobar, “It’s all about control.” And if “the U.S. controls the sources of energy of its rivals—Europe, Japan, China, and other nations aspiring to be more independent— they win.” 

The United States has enormous military power, but as Iraq, and now Afghanistan, makes clear, the old days when one could corner a market by engineering a coup or sending in the Marines are fast receding. The old imperial nations are fading, and the up and comers are more likely to be speaking Portuguese, Chinese and Hindi than English. The trick over the next several decades will be how to keep the competition for energy from sparking off brush fire wars or a catastrophic clash of the great powers. 

After six months in office, the Obama administration has arrived at a defining moment: the battle over health care reform. The outcome will shape future White House initiatives, the 2010 mid-term elections, and the future of the Republican Party. 

Since the Roosevelt presidency, Democrats have tried to reform America’s Byzantine health care system. Health care costs too much, isn’t available to everyone, and drags down the economy, thereby limiting U.S. competitiveness. 

While four components comprise the system—patients, doctors, hospitals, and insurance companies—most Americans understand the key problem is the role of insurance companies. Many observers want a single-payer plan, similar to Medicare, which would eliminate insurance companies and the for-profit nature of the system. 

In 1993 President Bill Clinton proposed a solution to the health care crisis. His plan was defeated because the Clinton administration had not coordinated effectively with their congressional allies. Sixteen years later, the Obama administration hopes to avoid the fate of the Clinton health care proposal by working closely with House and Senate Democrats. 

In his effort to build consensus within the Democratic Party, Obama has sketched out broad objectives for health care reform and relied upon Congress to fill in the details. Obama wants universal coverage. The dueling congressional plans come close to this, but fail to cover roughly 3 percent of Americans. Obama also wants a health care plan that reduces costs and the federal deficit. So far, the competing congressional plans fall short of accomplishing this objective. 

Because health care reform is a complex and contentious issue, some members of Congress have suggested the entire process slow down. On July 23, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid indicated that while committees would complete legislation, the full Senate would not vote on it before its Aug. 7 recess. This delay will work to the Republican’s advantage, give them a month to chip away at Obama’s plan and popularity with a coordinated death-by-a-thousand-cuts campaign that distorts the nature of the president’s health care program. 

While Obama’s plan has the support of the American Medical Association and the American Nurses Association, insurance companies are spending $1.4 million per day to defeat Obama’s initiative and employ an army of former government staff workers and retired Congress members to lobby against it. 

Health care reform opposition has two conceptual faces. One is economic. Insurance companies realize their profits will diminish if the Obama plan becomes law; the rules of monopoly capitalism will be set aside and they’ll have to charge competitive fees. In Obama’s words, “I don’t believe government can or should run health care. But I also don’t think insurance companies should have free reign to do as they please.” Desperate to continue their iron grip on the system, insurance companies falsely claim the Obama plan would reduce Americans’ access to health care. 

The second face of opposition is ideological. Most Republican members of congress are deeply conservative. They recognize that passage of the Obama plan would be more than a policy setback, it would deal a mortal wound to American conservatism. Shortly after Obama’s election, a leading Cato Institute conservative writer, Michael Cannon, wrote, Blocking Obama’s health care plan is key to the GOP’s survival. His point was that Democrats could win over Republican voters by improving the social safety net. “National health care... will bring reluctant voters into the Obama coalition.” Desperate to hold onto power, Republicans falsely argue that the Obama plan would insert a federal bureaucrat between patients and their doctors, ignoring the reality that in the current system insurance companies place a bureaucrat between a client and his or her doctor. 

Republicans see health care as the decisive battle of Obama’s first term. They are throwing millions of dollars into their anti-Obama campaign and are lying about the consequences of health care reform. If Obama’s health care plan becomes law, it will not only guarantee affordable health care to all Americans, it will fatally discredit the Republican Party and severely damage their chances in the mid-term elections. 

At his July 22 press conference, Obama linked health care reform to America’s long-term economic recovery. He reiterated his programmatic objectives—expand coverage, improve quality, lower costs, honor patient choice and hold insurance companies accountable—and pledged his plan will not add to the federal deficit. 

Congress will not vote on health care reform until after Labor Day. During the next six weeks expect the unholy alliance of Republicans and insurance companies to rain down withering fire on the Obama health care proposal. They will lie about every aspect of the plan, deny the need for change, and attack the president. 

Obama must fight back, joined by everyone who supported his Presidential campaign. This is the defining moment for health care reform. The president has to continue to explain his plan to the American people. He must use his political capital to rein in wayward Democratic legislators. He has to pull out all the stops. 

Obama became president because he trusted voters to act like adults. The campaign for health care reform tests this belief. Americans must see through the virulent Republican propaganda campaign and support the president’s plan. 

Bob Burnett is a Berkeley writer. He can be reached at bobburnett@comcast.net.

It used to be that a public figure could immediately lose his public standing by openly and avowedly making unmistakable white supremacist-racist remarks in the public domain. 

Or at least it was, for a while. 

In 1987, in an interview with Ted Koppel on ABC’s Nightline program, Los Angeles Dodger general manager Al Campanis was asked why there were so few African-American baseball managers and no general managers. African-Americans, Mr. Campanis replied “may not have some of the necessities to be, let’s say, a field manager, or, perhaps, a general manager.” (In the same interview, Mr. Campanis also said that African-Americans “don’t have the buoyancy” to be good swimmers.) Following the ensuing media and national uproar, Mr. Campanis was forced to resign his position with the Dodgers, and never lived down the controversy. 

A year later, CBS football commentator and independent betting handicapper Jimmy “the Greek” Snyder told a Washington D.C. television reporter that African-Americans were superior athletes because they were bred that way in slavery. “The black is a better athlete to begin with because he’s been bred to be that way,” Mr. Snyder said, “because of his high thighs and big thighs that goes up into his back, and they can jump higher and run faster because of their bigger thighs. This goes back all the way to the Civil War when during the slave trading, the owner - the slave owner would breed his big black to his big woman so that he could have a big black kid.” CBS immediately fired Mr. Snyder, and he dropped from public view thereafter. 

That was then, folks. This is now. 

This month, MSNBC national commentator, conservative columnist, former presidential candidate, and former Richard Nixon speechwriter Pat Buchanan appeared on MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow Show to talk on the subject of affirmative action and to Sonia Sotomayor Supreme Court nomination. Mr. Buchanan opposes Ms. Sotomayor, who is of Puerto Rican descent. 

The subject of the overwhelming historic, um, whiteness of the United States Supreme Court came up, and Ms. Maddow asked of Mr. Buchanan “Why do you think is that of the 110 Supreme Court justices we’ve had in this country, 108 of them have been white?” In answer, Mr. Buchanan said that he thought it was because “white men were 100 percent of the people that wrote the Constitution, 100 percent of the people that signed the Declaration of Independence, 100 percent of people who died at Gettysburg and Vicksburg. Probably close to 100 percent of the people who died at Normandy. This has been a country built basically by white folks in this country.” 

This is a bigoted conclusion based upon flawed facts. 

I don’t know the racial breakdown of the soldiers killed during the battles at Gettysburg or the Normandy D-Day invasion and, frankly, I don’t care. Gettysburg and Normandy were portions of major wars (the Civil War and World War II) fought in hundreds of battles over several years each, in which large numbers of American (or Federal, in the case of the Civil War) soldiers died who were not of white descent. To even have to re-publish an accounting of the numbers of those dead, for the sake of answering Mr. Buchanan’s assertions, defames the memory of the thousands of non-white soldiers who died in service to America. 

We will do so only in the case of the investment of Vicksburg, Mississippi, where Mr. Buchanan most demonstrates his ignorance. The Union Army attack on Vicksburg was part of General Ulysses Grant’s overall strategy of clearing the Mississippi River of all Confederate forts in order to both isolate the western Confederacy from the eastern and to free the river for federal shipping down to New Orleans and the gulf. While Vicksburg was the key to Confederate control of the middle Mississippi, the strong Confederate positions north and south of that town had to be cleared out for Mr. Grant’s strategy to be completed. 

On June 6, 1863, Confederate troops attacked a Federal force at Milliken’s Bend, Louisiana just north up the river from Vicksburg. The Federal forces included the all-Black regiments of the 9th and the 11th Louisiana and the 1st Mississippi. The 9th Louisiana was driven back on its earthworks and afterwards, according to “A History Of The Negro Troops In The War Of The Rebellion, 1861-1865” by Civil War veteran George Washington Williams, “a desperate struggle … ensued, wherein Negro recruits and veteran rebels engaged in a hand-to-hand conflict. Bayonets were freely used, and many of each force were transfixed, and hand-to-hand conflicts with clubbed muskets and swords were numerous.”  

The Confederates were repulsed but not without enormous casualties to the Federal side. Mr. Williams quotes the official record of the Millikens Bend battle that “of the enlisted men [in the Negro force], one hundred and twenty-three were killed, one hundred and eighty-two wounded, and one hundred and thirteen missing.”  

Captain Matthew M. Miller, one of the white officers who commanded the African-American troops (Black commissioned officers were not then allowed by the U.S. Army) wrote later that “Our regiment (Company I, Ninth Louisiana) had about three hundred men in the fight. … We had about forty men killed in the regiment and eighty wounded, so you can judge of what part of the fight my company sustained. I never felt more grieved and sick at heart than when I saw how many brave soldiers had been slaughtered-one with six wounds, all the rest with two or three, none less than two wounds. Two of my colored sergeants were killed, both brave, noble men, always prompt, vigilant, and ready for the fray. I never more wish to hear the expression, ‘The Niggers won’t fight.’ Come with me, a hundred yards from where I sit, and I can show you the wounds that cover the bodies of sixteen as brave, loyal and patriotic soldiers as ever drew bead on a rebel.” 

“I can say [of the African-American troops],” Mr. Miller added, “that I never saw a braver company of men in my life. Not one of them offered to leave his place until ordered to fall back. I went down to the hospital, three miles, today to see the wounded. Nine of them were there, two having died of their wounds. A boy I had cooking for me came and begged a gun when the rebels were advancing, and took his place with the company; and when we retook the breastworks I found him badly wounded, with one gunshot and two bayonet wounds. A new recruit I had issued a gun to the day before the fight was found dead with a firm grasp on his gun, the bayonet of which was broken in three pieces. So they fought and died, defending the cause that we revere. They met death coolly, bravely; not rashly did they expose themselves, but all were steady and obedient to orders.” 

In the equally horrific May 27th attack on the Confederate stronghold at Port Hudson, Louisiana, also a part of Mr. Grant’s Vicksburg campaign, the 1st Louisiana Native Guard regiment had 24 enlisted men killed and the 3rd Louisiana Native Guard regiment suffered 10 killed and 38 wounded. (My great-grandfather served in the 1st Louisiana, but did not take part in the Port Hudson fighting.) 

So much for Mr. Buchanan’s ignorant statement that “100 percent” of the soldiers who died “at Vicksburg” where white men. 

That brings us to Mr. Buchanan’s contention that “white men” comprised “100 percent” of the people who wrote the Constitution and signed the Declaration of Independence. Certainly that is true, but we’re not quite certain what point it makes, or why it should justify Mr. Buchanan’s defense of the fact that more than 98 percent of the United States Supreme Court Justices down the years were chosen from the ranks of white men. 

White women were second class citizens in colonial America, not allowed by law either to vote or to serve as delegates to the various governing bodies, so their absence from the list of Declaration of Independence signatories can be attributed to the white male tradition of shutting them out, not to any lack of courage or revolutionary zeal on the white women’s part. Mr. Buchanan’s argument justifying exclusion of women from the Supreme Court Justice ranks for so many years amounts to saying that two hundred years of post-Revolution discrimination against women is justified by some thousands of years of pre-Revolution discrimination against women in Britain and the American colonies. The same applies in spades (pun intended) when it comes to Mr. Buchanan’s justification of the long lack of Supreme Court justices of color. The largest non-white minority during America’s history and virtually the only one at all during the colonial years, free African-Americans had few political rights in the pre-Revolution colonies, and enslaved African-Americans had no rights at all. In many parts of the colonies and later in the states until the Civil War, enslaved Africans were forbidden to learn to read, with violations punishable by whippings and, on occasion, even death. For Mr. Buchanan to now imply some lack of civic responsibility by African-Americans by not, somehow, forcing themselves to the table (by petitions or sit-in demonstrations, is he suggesting?) to sign the Declaration or help write the Constitution would be bizarre, at the least, were it not for the fact that it rubs raw many historic wounds. 

And, of course, Mr. Buchanan’s strange reasoning and contentions that many of the Declaration signers as well as the principle Constitution writer had the freedom to make such choices precisely because they were actively denying such freedom to African-Americans. There were 56 signers of the Declaration of Independence. Of the 21 who signed from the five Southern colonies (Georgia, Maryland, Virginia, and the two Carolinas), 15 were holders of slaves. 

The Constitution had many authors and some of them were ardently antislavery. New York and Pennsylvania’s Gouverneur Morris, one of the five men on the Constitutional Convention committee that actually wrote the document, argued at the Convention that: “Upon what principle is it that the slaves shall be computed in the representation? Are they men? Then make them citizens and let them vote. Are they property? Why then is no other property included? The houses in [Philadelphia] are worth more than all the wretched slaves that cover the rice swamps of South Carolina....The admission of slaves into the representation when fairly explained comes to this: that the inhabitant of Georgia and South Carolina who goes to the coast of Africa and, in defiance of the most sacred laws of humanity, tears away his fellow creatures from their dearest connections and damns them to the most cruel bondages, shall have more votes in a government instituted for the protection of the rights of mankind than the citizen of Pennsylvania or New Jersey who views with laudable horror so nefarious a practice.” 

But Virginia’s James Madison, upon whose writings the Constitution was largely based and who was thus considered by contemporaries as “the Father of the Constitution,” held some 100 slaves himself on his Montpellier plantation. Had Mr. Madison, later the fourth President of the United States, been forced to walk through the fields all day plowing, planting, weeding, “cropping”, and curing the tobacco that was the plantation’s main source of income, it is almost certain that he would have been too weary in the evenings to write the soaring words that make up a portion of the Federalist Papers. 

To agree with Mr. Buchanan’s contention that “this has been a country built basically by white folks,” you have to substantially alter and amend any common understanding of the term “build.” 

That Mr. Campanis and Mr. Snyder can be skewered and sacked 20 years ago for comments far less bigoted than Mr. Buchanan, while Mr. Buchanan sails on untouched, without taint or scratch, is perhaps the saddest and most sobering comment on our current racial climate and times. 

We’re surrounded by non-native plants and animals, most of which would qualify as what biologists and resource managers call invasive exotics. The thistles in your garden, the possum in your garage, the house sparrows nesting under your eaves, the Argentine ants in your kitchen, the blue gum eucalyptus up the hill—all are invasives. San Francisco Bay has been called the world’s most invaded estuary, the adopted home of aquatic creatures native to the East Coast, Europe, Asia, and elsewhere. Many have displaced native species that filled a similar ecological niche. 

You might wonder what difference that process makes in terms of overall ecosystem function. Are exotic and native species interchangeable parts in the great machine? What happens when one kind of ant or clam or shrub replaces another? 

It has become pretty clear that such substitutions can have far-reaching consequences. Exotic species can change what ecologists call the trophic flow—the way nutrients travel from primary producer to secondary consumer to predator to scavenger-within natural systems. They can increase the frequency and intensity of wildfires. They can affect human health and livelihood. 

In a recent study at Tomales Bay, a team of marine biologists led by David L. Kimbro at UC Davis looked at the interactions of natives and exotics in a triple-decker trophic system. At the bottom rung, there’s the native Olympia oyster (Ostreola conchophila), a sedentary filter-feeder. At the study site, its historic primary predator was a whelk (Acanthinucella spirata)—and if you’re feeling an impulse to snicker, blame that Monty Python routine. 

Some references call it the angular unicorn snail or spotted thorn drupe. The whelk in turn was preyed on by the spot-bellied rock crab (Cancer antennarius), which peels open the shells of its victims. 

Kimbro and his co-authors posit that the crabs are indirect benefactors of the oysters. On one hand, a large enough crab population will keep the whelks in check and reduce predation pressure on the tasty bivalves. On the other, the whelks have evolved anti-crab defensive behavior, namely avoiding areas-including oyster beds—where the rock crabs are likely to be.  

The crabs, specialized whelk-crackers, leave the oysters alone. 

Enter the invasives. Years ago, when the native oyster population had been depleted, growers introduced eastern oysters to supplement them. With the eastern oysters came another predatory whelk, the oyster drill (Urosalpinx cinerea). The founding oyster drills at Tomales Bay originated in Long Island Sound. The European green crab (Carcinus maenas) arrived in San Francisco Bay in 1989 and spread north to Tomales. Both the drill and the green crab can tolerate fresher water than their native counterparts and are more common in the inner portion of the bay, near creek outflows. 

To the native whelk Acanthinucella, a crab is a crab. They avoid the exotic green crab as they do the native rock crab. When the green crabs are in the oyster beds, the whelks opt to feed on barnacles instead. But the oyster drills had evolved in a habitat free of competently predatory crabs. They were, as the researchers put it, naïve; they had no idea how to react to a crab.  

That would make the drills easy pickings for the rock crabs. But the green crabs were another story. They’re more generalist feeders, augmenting their mollusk diet with seaworms and algae. Instead of peeling off the shells of their prey, they use their claws to crush them. This works for juvenile whelks of both species, but not for adults. Once a whelk grows large enough, green crabs are no longer a threat. 

The naïve oyster drills, then, are not deterred from preying on oysters by crab avoidance. The rock crabs could potentially control them, but where the green crabs have replaced the native rock crabs, the top-down pressure is off and the oysters bear the brunt. The effect of removing a top tidal-zone predator in Tomales Bay is similar to what happens on land when, say, coyotes are killed off and foxes, freed from their own predator, wipe out ground-nesting birds. 

So it appears that in this ecosystem at least, the pieces are not interchangeable. The players in an ecosystem have a shared history. Spot-bellied rock crabs, Acanthinucella whelks, and Olympia oysters have had a long time to work things out. The crabs have evolved an effective predatory strategy; the whelks have evolved a well-founded fear of crabs. 

Switch whelks and the oyster beds are no longer a no-go zone. Switch crabs and you get a top predator that’s incapable of controlling the lesser predator; to paraphrase Marx, the big bully is no longer picking on the little bully. (Groucho in Night at the Opera, that is.) Either of those changes is bad news for the oysters, and for anyone who’s trying to raise them.  

The people of 17th century Devon made and enjoyed a wonderful apple cyder, and being a modern people (aren’t we always modern people?) they used a new-fangled mechanical press to make their cyder. The press was cleaned using lead shot and, when combined with the acid of the apples, left a residue that made more than a few folks sick. The Devon Colic was identified and explained by one Dr. George Baker in the mid-18th century and by the early 19th century, folks finally accepted the science and got the lead out. 

Lead poisoning is as old as lead’s discovery and use, and its ill effects were noticed as early as 200 BC in Rome (though I would guess that the moms of Asia Minor called this one first). First mined in Anatolia (ancient Turkey) some 8,500 years ago, lead was easy to work and was probably our first real exploration into metalwork. Acetate of Lead was a popular sweetener in Roman times (and we worry about our artificial sweeteners), even when its toxicity was suspected. I suppose we should be able to relate, living in a world where many of our current activities are the subject of great controversy (are you smoking as you read this?). 

Lead was used by Roman engineers to form pipe (they were sort of squarish, unlike our familiar round ones) and the Roman baths in Bath, England (called Aquae Sulis after the odd-winged God, Sulis, who inhabited the place) still have them operating and on display. In fact, our word plumbing comes directly from the word for lead, Plumbum (which is what you get when you sit in a bunch of plums, right?). 

It’s apocrypha that our cities still use lead pipes, as these were removed in response to increased awareness and concern for the ill effects of lead over the past 130 years or so. That said, we were using lead in solder for copper piping when I started out as a builder and it was only recently (about 1988) that, by mandate, lead solders were replaced with alternative “lead-free” ones.  

Despite the presence of some minor lead in these older copper systems, there isn’t much lead that comes off, except when significant amount of oxygen or acidity in water is present. Our water supply is fairly well-regulated and this remains a relatively small problem (as best as we can gauge at this point).  

But one lead component has remained all this while. This is the lowly faucet. Faucets, it turns out, still contain some lead and do shed this into our drinking glass. It’s a function of manufacturing and of leak prevention that we use this in faucets. Lead is pretty good at preventing pinholes in rough brass and copper metals and also provides a plasticizing or lubricating effect in the milling of these metals, especially brass, and brass has been the favorite of faucet manufacturers for a very long time as it is corrosion resistant and easy to work. 

Brass is largely copper and zinc, but even today, most brass is about 8 percent lead. Removal of the brass, while preserving good function has taken some innovation but it’s finally happening. 

About two years ago, in the September of 2006, California passed legislation to remove all but one quarter of 1 percent of the lead in all faucets from which we draw water to cook with or drink. This gave the manufacturers more than three years to comply. So this coming January, you should no longer be able to buy any kitchen or bathroom faucet that will not meet the current standard. This isn’t the first lead removal standard we’ve faced in the United States or the state, just the latest. 

I’ve been perusing websites that discuss California Assembly Bill 1953 (which mandates the lead reduction in faucets) and most are from faucet makers that start out with something like, “We’ve always led the way in innovation” and, “Part of our commitment to excellence is our guarantee that each product will move you to tears, send your children to college and help you finish that movie script you’ve been putting off all these years.” This makes me wonder if the new faucets might have problems. Well, frankly, I don’t know. I know that lead was really good for paints and that they’re just not quite as good as they used to be (not that I want to go back to lead paint) and asbestos fibers made for really good roof patching compounds (again, not wishing).  

So it might take us a little while to get this right, but I do think the industry should be supported in this laudable effort and I believe it’s worth investing in a new faucet at the place you get most of your drinking water from (if it’s fairly old). Of course, you don’t have to do this to meet AB 1953. The legislation is only designed to take the old stock off the shelf so that all future work will be a bit safer. 

Lead is a serious matter, especially for children up to the age of 6. All small children living in older homes should be tested. Ask your doctor. Lead is extremely toxic and inhibits development of the brain and other organs and can result in behavioral abnormalities and learning disabilities. Lead can also sicken adults, attacking kidney function or raising blood pressure. The current thinking is that there are no safe lead levels and that even minute levels of lead can produce illness. 

The EPA has said that they believe roughly 10-20 percent of our lead exposure can come from drinking water. While not earthshaking, this is certainly worthy of some attention. They have also said that roughly half of an infant’s exposure to lead can come from water if they consume primarily mixed formula (one more reason to breast-feed). If this is the case, it clearly becomes extremely important to consider changing faucets, have one’s piping tested for lead solders and, most of all, to use that simple practice of letting the water run a short while before filling the drinking glass (or baby bottle), especially first thing in the morning or anytime the faucet has not been run for a while. Fill up your watering can with the first gallon—the plants won’t mind. 

Strong evidence favors lead paint as being our primary source of lead exposure, so water’s probably not our chief worry as regards lead. Nevertheless, it can’t hurt for all of us to clean up our act just a bit more. To eschew the Devon Colic, the morbi metallici or Saturn (as were the diagnoses once pronounced) and turn in your 8 percent faucets as we embrace the new decade. 

Thanks to my great friend Charlie, raconteur/handyman par excellence for tipping me off to the coming spoilage date on faucets and for many other plumb good times. 

THURSDAY, JULY 30 

CHILDREN 

Active Arts Theatre for Young Audiences “If You Give A Mouse a Cookie” play based on the book by Laura Numeroff, Thurs., Sat, Sun. at 4 p.m., Fri. at 6 p.m., through Aug. 16, at Children’s Fairyland, 699 Bellevue Ave., Oakland. Tickets are $10-$12. 296-4433. activeartsttheatre.org 

THEATER 

“The W. Kamau Bell Curve” Thurs.-Sun. at 8 p.m. at La Peña Cultural Center. Tickets are $15-$20. 849-2568. www.lapena.org 

Youth Musical Theater Company “Les Miserables” Thurs.-Sat. at 8 p.m., Sun. at 2 p.m. at Julia Morgan Theater, 2640 College Ave. Tickets are $8-$20. www.brownpapertickets.com 

EXHIBITIONS 

“Deep Water” Paintings by Ryan Blackman. Opening reception at 7 p.m. at Giorgi Gallery, 2911 Claremont Ave. Exhibit runs to Aug. 30. 848-1228. giorgigallery.com 

READINGS AND LECTURES 

Novella Carpenter, author of “Farm City: the Education of an Urban Farmer” reads at 7:30 p.m. at Pegaus Books Downtown, 2349 Shattuck Ave. 649-1320. 

MUSIC AND DANCE 

Natalie Cressman, trombone, at noon at the downtown Berkeley BART Station. 

Johnny Nitro & The Doorslammers at 8:30 p.m. at Ashkenaz. Blues dance lesson at 8 p.m. Cost is $10. 525-5054. www.ashkenaz.com 

Gerry Tenney with California Klezmer & the Lost Tribe at 8 p.m. at Freight and Salvage. Cost is $21.50-$22.50. 548-1761. www.freightandsalvage.org 

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

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

FRIDAY, JULY 31 

THEATER 

Actors Ensemble of Berkeley “You’re a Good Man, Charlie Brown” Fri. and Sat. at 8 p.m. at Live Oak Theater, 1301 Shattuck Ave. at Berryman, through Aug. 15. Tickets are $12-$15. 649-5999. www.aeofberkeley.org 

Altarena Playhouse “Spitfire Grill” Fri. and Sat. at 8 p.m., Sun. at 2 p.m. at Altarena Playhouse, 1409 High St., Alameda, through Aug. 16. Tickets are $17-$20. 523-1553. www.altarena.org 

Oakland Summer Theatre “Aladin and the Wonderful Lamp” a multi-generational musical Fri. at 8 p.m., Sat. at 2 and 8 p.m. and Sun. at 3 p.m. at Malonga Casquelord Center for the Arts, 1428 Alice St., Oakland. Tickets are $9-$10. 597-5045. 

“The W. Kamau Bell Curve” Through Sun. at 8 p.m. at La Peña Cultural Center. Tickets are $20. 849-2568. www.lapena.org 

San Francisco Mime Troupe “Too Big To Fail” at 6:30 p.m. at Willard Park. www.sfmt.org 

Youth Musical Theater Company “Les Miserables” Thurs.-Sat. at 8 p.m., Sun. at 2 p.m. at Julia Morgan Theater, 2640 College Ave. Tickets are $8-$20. www.brownpapertickets.com 

FILM 

“Out of the Ashes” A Project Peace Film Festival, featuring films by Bay Area female filmmakers, to benefit Oakland Elizabeth House, from 7 to 10:30 p.m. at Gaia Arts Center, 2120 Allston Way. Tickets are $10. For reservations see www.projectpeaceeastbay.org 

MUSIC AND DANCE 

Quartet Rouge, acoustic pop, at noon at the Kaiser Center Roof Garden, on top of the parking garage, 300 Lakeside Drive, Oakland. Free. www. 

KaiserCenterRoofGarden.com 

Kalil Wilson, jazz, at 4:45 p.m. at the Cheesboard Collective. www.KalilWilson.com 

“Pirated Mid-Summer Night Dreams—Purple and Black Ball” with Lolita Sweet, The Chairman and Triple Ave. at 7 p.m. at Berkeley Fellowship of Unitarian Universalists, 1924 Cedar St. Cost is $5-$10. 776-4422. 

Celebration of Faith, gospel performances with Ronnie Mills, Linda Jackson, Godsend and others at 8 p.m. at Hilltop Community Church, 3118 Shane Drive, Richmond. Tickets are $10. 778-1903. 

Eric Swinderman’s Straight Outta Oakland at 8 p.m. at Anna’s Jazz Island, 2120 Allston Way. Cost is $14. 841-JAZZ. www.AnnasJazzIsland.com 

Joe Warner Trio at 8 p.m. at the Jazzschool. Cost is $12-$18. 845-5373.  

Danjuma & Onola, Makuru featuring Ousseynou Kouyate at 9:30 p.m. at Ashkenaz. Cost is $10-$13. 525-5054.  

Bluehouse, acoustic female duo, at 8 p.m. at Caffe Trieste, 2500 San Pablo Ave., at Dwight. 548-5198.  

Roy Zimmerman at 8 p.m. at Freight and Salvage. Cost is $18.50-$19.50. 548-1761.  

Guitar Duel: An Evening of Classical Guitar with Jard and Fred at 7:30 p.m. at 150 Frank H. Ogawa Plaza. Tickets are $12-$18. guitarduel.eventbrite.com  

The P-PL at 10 p.m. at Beckett’s Irish Pub, 2271 Shattuck Ave. 647-1790.  

Tony Rich at 10 p.m. at Maxwell’s Lounge, 341 13th St., Oakland. Tickets are $15. 839-6169. 

The Skye Steele Trio at 8 p.m. at Jupiter. 843-8277. 

George Cole & Vive Le Jazz at 8 p.m. at Berkeley Art House Gallery, 2905 Shattuck Ave. Donation $10-$12. www.georgecole.net 

Fear the Fiasco, Keeping Score at 9 p.m. at Shattuck Down Low, 2284 Shattuck Ave. Cost is $10. 548-1159.  

SATURDAY, AUGUST 1 

CHILDREN  

“Dinosaur on My Head” a musical program with Peter Apel at 3:30 p.m. at Kensington Library, 61 Arlington Ave., Kensington. For ages 3 and up. 524-3043. 

“My Cat Pearl” A reading by author and illustrator Dona Tuner, followed by a feline craft project at 1 p.m. at Museum of Children’s Art, 538 9th St., Oakland. 465-8770. www.ocha.org 

EXHIBITIONS 

The Enamelist Society International Juried Exhibition Exhibits of enameled art, jewelry, sculpture and wall pieces, from local, national and international artists on display from Aug. 1-16 at Oakland Art Gallery, 199 Kahn's Alley, Oakland. 526-3668. www.enamelistsociety.org  

Juried @ BAC 2009 Annual juried exhibition featuring works on paper. Opening reception at 5:30 p.m. at Berkeley Art Center, 1275 Walnut St. 644-6893. www.berkeleyartcenter.org 

THEATER 

San Francisco Mime Troupe “Too Big To Fail” at 2 p.m. at Willard Park. www.sfmt.org 

Shotgun Players “The Farm” Sat. and Sun. at 4 p.m. at John Hinkel Park, Southhampton Ave., through Sept 13. Suggested donation $10. 841-6500. www.shotgunplayers.org 

Stone Soup Improv Comedy at 8 p.m. at Temescal Arts Center, 511 48th St. at Telegraph, Oakland. Cost is $7-$10. www.stonesoupimprov.com 

FILM 

San Francisco Jewish Film Festival at the Roda Theater, 2025 Addison, through Aug. 8. For schedule and tickets 866-558-4253. www.sfjff.org 

READINGS AND LECTURES 

Bay Area Poets Coalition open reading from 3 to 5 pm. at Strawberry Creek Lodge, 1320 Addison St. Park on the street. 527-9905. 

MUSIC AND DANCE 

The African American Presence in Mexico with Son de la Tierra at 8 p.m. at Oakland Museum of California, 10th and Oak Sts. Tickets are $10. 238-6942. www.museumca.org 

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

Pellejo Seco at 9:30 p.m. at Ashkenaz. Cuban salsa lesson at 8:30 p.m. Cost is $10-$13. 525-5054. www.ashkenaz.com  

Claudia Russell and the Folk Unlimited Orchestra with Dan Navarro at 8 p.m. at Freight and Salvage. Cost is $18.50-$19.50. 548-1761. www.freightandsalvage.org 

Wendy Darling, The Graham Patzner Band, Mirror Fauna at 9 p.m. at The Starry Plough. Cost is $10. 841-2082. www.starryploughpub.com 

Sotaque Baiano at 9 p.m. at Shattuck Down Low, 2284 Shattuck Ave. Cost is $5-$10. 548-1159. www.shattuckdownlow.com 

Kalil Wilson at 8 p.m. at the Jazzschool. Cost is $10. www.KalilWilson.com 

SUNDAY, AUGUST 2 

CHILDREN 

Rafael Manriquez & Ingrid Rubis at Ashkenaz at 3 p.m. Cost is $4-$6. 525-5054. www.ashkenaz.com 

EXHIBITIONS 

Squeak Carnwath: Painting Is No Ordinary Object, docent tour at 2 p.m. at Oakland Museum of California, 10th and Oak Sts. Admission is $5-$8. 238-2200. www.museumca.org 

FILM 

San Francisco Jewish Film Festival at the Roda Theater, 2025 Addison, through Aug. 8. For schedule and tickets 866-558-4253. www.sfjff.org 

READINGS AND LECTURES 

Kala Salutes Karl Kasten with reading from his new memoir “Foghorns & Peacocks” at 3 p.m. at Kala Gallery, 2990 San Pablo Ave. for tickets call 549-2977, ext. 314. 

Poetry Flash with Lucille Lang and Roz Spafford at 3 p.m. at Diesel, 5433 College Ave., Oakland. 525-5476. 

MUSIC AND DANCE 

Oakland Municipal Band Concerts from 1 to 3 p.m. at The Bandstand at Lake Merritt, 666 Bellevue Ave. Free. Lawn chirs, blankets and picnics welcome. 338-2818. 

Yanga Celebration A carnaval of black culture in Mexico with music and dance from noon to 4 p.m. at Oakland Museum of California, 10th and Oak Sts.Cost is $5-$8. 238-2200. www.museumca.org 

Avotcja at 7 p.m. at La Peña. Cost is $10-$15. 849-2568. www.lapena.org 

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

Stompin’ the Blues at 6:30 p.m. at Ashkenaz. Dance lesson at 6 p.m. Cost is $10. 525-5054. www.ashkenaz.com 

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

BluesSunday with Roger Brown & Friends at 8 p.m. at Berkeley Art House Gallery, 2905 Shattuck Ave. Donation $5-$110 and potluck. 472-3170. 

MONDAY, AUGUST 3 

FILM 

San Francisco Jewish Film Festival at the Roda Theater, 2025 Addison, through Aug. 8. For schedule and tickets 866-558-4253. www.sfjff.org 

TUESDAY, AUGUST 4 

CHILDREN 

Bonnie Lockhart at 6:30 p.m. at the Albany Library, 1247 Marin Ave. 526-3720.  

FILM 

San Francisco Jewish Film Festival at the Roda Theater, 2025 Addison, through Aug. 8. For schedule and tickets 866-558-4253. www.sfjff.org 

MUSIC AND DANCE 

Sauce Piquante at 8:30 p.m. at Ashkenaz. 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 

Powell St. John at 8 p.m. at Freight and Salvage. Cost is $18.50-$19.50. 548-1761.  

WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 5 

EXHIBITIONS 

“The Continuation of an Ancient Tradition: Cloisonné Enamel from Georgia” on display at the Christensen Heller Gallery, 5829 College Ave., Oakland, through Aug. 14. 655-5952. www.christensenheller.com 

FILM 

New Cuban Filmmakers at 7:30 p.m. at La Peña, 3105 Shattuck Ave. Cost is $7-$10. 849-2568. www.lapena.org 

READINGS AND LECTURES 

William T. Vollman reads at 7:30 p.m. at Moe’s Books, 2476 Telegraph Ave. 849-2087. 

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

MUSIC AND DANCE 

Native Elements, reggae, at noon at Oakland City Center, 12th and Broadway. 

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

Bill Cope and Friends at 8:3o p.m. at Ashkenaz. Blkan dance lesson at 7:30 p.m. Cost is $10. 525-5054. www.ashkenaz.com 

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

Ray Cepeda Latin Jazz at 7 p.m. at Chester's Bayview Cafe, 1508 B Walnut Square. 849-9995. 

Patience Chaitezvi & Erica Azim at 8 p.m. at Freight and Salvage. Cost is $18.50-$19.50. 548-1761. www.freightandsalvage.org 

Kalil Wilson at 8 p.m. at Jupiter. www.KalilWilson.com 

THURSDAY, AUGUST 6 

CHILDREN 

Active Arts Theatre for Young Audiences “If You Give A Mouse a Cookie” play based on the book by Laura Numeroff, Thurs. Sat, Sun. at 4 p.m., Fri. at 6 p.m., through Aug. 16, at Children’s Fairyland, 699 Bellevue Ave., Oakland. Tickets are $10-$12. 296-4433. activeartsttheatre.org 

EXHIBITIONS 

“Emerald Cities: Arts of Siam and Burma, 1775-1950” An overview of the upcoming exhibition at the Asian Art Museum at 1:30 p.m. at the Albany Library, 1247 Marin Ave. 526-3720. 

Paintings by Antonio Guerrero, one of the Cuban Five, with Alice Walker at 7:30 p.m. at La Peña Cultural Center. Cost is $10-$20. 849-2568. www.lapena.org 

Oakland Art Association Group Show in the windows at 54 Washington St., Jack London Square, through Nov. 12.  

FILM 

San Francisco Jewish Film Festival at the Roda Theater, 2025 Addison, through Aug. 8. For schedule and tickets 866-558-4253. www.sfjff.org 

Free Outdoor Movies at Jack London Square “Big Fish” Come at 7:30 p.m., movies begin at sundown. Bring blankets and stadium seat. 645-9292. www.jacklondonsquare.com 

READINGS AND LECTURES 

Indigo Moor and Alena Hairston read their poetry at 7 p.m. at the Albany Library, 1247 Marin Ave., Albany. 536-3720. 

MUSIC AND DANCE 

Julian Pollack and Infinite Playground at noon at the downtown Berkeley BART Station. 

Stu Allen & Sandy Rothman at 9 p.m. at Ashkenaz. Cost is $TBA. 525-5054. www.ashkenaz.com 

Led Kaapana at 8 p.m. at Freight and Salvage. Cost is $18.50-$19.50. 548-1761. www.freightandsalvage.org 

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

Vinny Golia & Friends, jazz, at 8 p.m. at Flux 53 Theater, 5300-5312 Foothill Blvd., Oakland. Cost is $10. 842-8841. 

7 Orange ABC, Dialectic, Tremor Low at 9 p.m. at The Starry Plough. Cost is $6. 841-2082. www.starryploughpub.com 

FRIDAY, AUGUST 7 

THEATER 

Actors Ensemble of Berkeley “You’re a Good Man, Charlie Brown” Fri. and Sat. at 8 p.m. at Live Oak Theater, 1301 Shattuck Ave. at Berryman, through Aug. 15. Tickets are $12-$15. 649-5999. www.aeofberkeley.org 

Altarena Playhouse “Spitfire Grill” Fri. and Sat. at 8 p.m., Sun. at 2 p.m. at Altarena Playhouse, 1409 High St., Alameda, through Aug. 16. Tickets are $17-$20. 523-1553. www.altarena.org 

Stage Door Conservatory “Grease” performed by Teens on Stage Fri. and Sat. at 7:30 p.m. and Sun. at 2 p.m. at Julia Morgan Theater, 2640 College Ave. Tickets are $10-$20. 521-6250. stagedoor2005@yahoo.com 

Woodminster Summer Musicals “Singin’ in the Rain” at 8 p.m. at Woodminster Amphitheater in Joaquin Miller Park, 3300 Joachin Miller Rd., Oakland, through Aug. 16. Tickets are $25-$40. 531-9597. www.woodminster.com 

EXHIBITIONS 

“Sounding Art: Instruments as Art Pieces” Works by Perry Cook, Lisa Coons, Anne Hege, Peter Musselman and Dan Truman opens at 7 p.m. at Oakopolis, 447 25th St., Oakland, and runs through Sept. 5. oakopolis@gmail.com 

“Dream Pools, Light Drifts” recent paintings of Jenn Shifflet. Opening Reception at 6 p.m. at Chandra Cerrito Contemporary, 25 Grand Ave., upper level, Oakland. Runs to Sept. 26. 415-577-7537. www.chandracerrito.com 

Maya Kabat “Cities and Desire” paintings and Mary V. Marsh “Everyday Readers” artist book and prints. Opening reception at 6 p.m. at Mercury 20 Gallery, 25 Grand Ave., Oakland. 701-4620. www.mercurytwenty.com 

“How Do You Know” An exchange show of Irish artists curated by Gallery 126 in Galway, Ireland. Opening reception at 7 p.m. at Blankspace, 6608 San Pablo Ave., Oakland. 547-6608. 

MUSIC AND DANCE 

Pure Ecstasy, motown, at noon at the Kaiser Center Roof Garden, on top of the parking garage, 300 Lakeside Drive, Oakland. Free. www.KaiserCenterRoofGarden.com 

Gateswingers Jazz Band at 7:30 p.m. at 33 Revolutions Record Shop amd Cafe,10086 San Pablo Ave. at Central, El Cerrito. 898-1836. 

Grupo Falso Baiano at 8 p.m. at La Peña Cultural Center. Cost is $12-$14. 849-2568. www.lapena.org 

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

Antioquia, Free Peoples at 9 p.m. at Ashkenaz. Cost is $1, $8 with a bike. 525-5054. www.ashkenaz.com 

Earl Brothers at 8 p.m. at Freight and Salvage. Cost is $18.50-$19.50. 548-1761. www.freightandsalvage.org 

Jessee Brewer, Brad Brooks, Joel Streeter at 9 p.m. at The Starry Plough. Cost is $10. 841-2082. www.starryploughpub.com 

SATURDAY, AUGUST 8 

THEATER 

HurLyBurLy Productions “Cat’s-Paw” Sat at 8 p.m., Sun. at 2 p.m. at Periscope Cellars, 1410 62nd St., Emeryville. Tickets are $20. periscopecellars.com 

Shotgun Players “The Farm” Sat. and Sun. at 4 p.m. at John Hinkel Park, Southhampton Ave., through Sept 13. Suggested donation $10. 841-6500. www.shotgunplayers.org 

Stage Door Conservatory “Grease” performed by Teens on Stage at 7:30 p.m. and Sun. at 2 p.m. at Julia Morgan Theater, 2640 College Ave. Tickets are $10-$20. 521-6250. stagedoor2005@yahoo.com 

EXHIBITIONS 

“Isaura: A Life in Focus” Photographs of the Afro-Brazilian dancer. Artist talk at 2 p.m. at Berkeley Pubic Library, 2090 Kittredge St. Exhibit runs to Sept. 30. 981-6240.  

“Alan Osborne: Expressionist Enamels” Recption at 3 p.m. at the Richmond Art Center, 2540 Bartlett Ave., Richmond. Exhibition runs through Aug. 29. 620-6772. www.therac.org 

“Wildlife of Costa Rica” Photographs by Dan Suzio. Opening reception at 2 p.m. at The LightRoom Gallery, 2263 Fifth St.Exhibition runs to Aug. 28. 649-8111. 

Maya Kabat “Cities and Desire” paintings and Mary V. Marsh “Everyday Readers” artist book and prints. Artist talk at 2 p.m. at Mercury 20 Gallery, 25 Grand Ave., Oakland. 701-4620. www.mercurytwenty.com 

FILM 

San Francisco Jewish Film Festival at the Roda Theater, 2025 Addison, through Aug. 8. For schedule and tickets 866-558-4253. www.sfjff.org 

Growing Up in Oakland: Youth Film Festival from 2 to 5 p.m. at Peralta Hacienda, 1870 Antonio Peralta House, 2465 34th Ave., Oakland. Films are free, tours are $3. RSVP for tour to 532-9142. http://peraltahacienda.org  

“Back to the Future” at dusk at the outdoor big-screen at Cerrito Vista Park, 950 Pomona at Moeser Lane, El Cerrito. Free. Bring a picnic dinner and balnkets. www.el-cerrito.org 

MUSIC AND DANCE 

Duniya Dance & Drum Company at 8 p.m. at La Peña Cultural Center. Cost is $15-$20. 849-2568. www.lapena.org 

Frankye Kelly & Her Trio at 8 p.m. at Anna’s Jazz Island, 2120 Allston Way. Cost is $14. 841-JAZZ. www.AnnasJazzIsland.com 

Tambores Remelexo at 9:30 p.m. at Ashkenaz. Cost is $10-$13. 525-5054. www.ashkenaz.com  

Phil Marsh at 8 p.m. at Freight and Salvage. Cost is $18.50-$19.50. 548-1761. www.freightandsalvage.org 

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

The Eric Mcfadden Trio, Teddy Presberg at 9 p.m. at The Starry Plough. Cost is $12. 841-2082. www.starryploughpub.com 

SUNDAY, AUGUST 9 

CHILDREN 

Solo Cissokho at Ashkenaz at 3 p.m. Cost is $4-$6. 525-5054. www.ashkenaz.com 

THEATER 

“Nice Jewish Girls Gone Bad” at 8 p.m. at Shattuck Down Low. Tickets are $15-$20. www.brownpapertickets.com 

READINGS AND LECTURES 

Architecture Tour of the Oakland Museum of California at 1 p.m. at Oakland Museum of California, 10th and Oak Sts. Free. 238-2200. www.museumca.org 

MUSIC AND DANCE 

Bob Harp at 1 p.m. at Rasputin Music, 2401 Telegraph Ave. 1-800-350-8700. 

San Francisco Renaissance Voices “The Bawdy and the Chaste” Palestrina’s Missa Sicut lilium inter spinas with Banchieri’s comic Festino madrigals at 7:30 p.m. at First Presbyterian of Alameda, 2001 Santa Clara, Alamed.a Tickets are $15-$18. www.SFRV.org 

Single Payer Puppets “The Sound of Moolah” A puppet musical on health care reform at 6 p.m. at La Peña. Cost is $5-$10. 849-2568. www.lapena.org 

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

Farewell to 1111 Addison, open mic, at 8 p.m. at Freight and Salvage. Cost is $8.50-$9.50. 548-1761. www.freightandsalvage.org 

“In case you haven’t heard,” comedian W. Kamau Bell said, “A black guy’s president now. I’m not fighting against the Evil Empire anymore! I mean, how many Bush jokes can you do?” 

Bell was elaborating on some of the changes in his solo show, The W. Kamau Bell Curve: Ending Racism in About an Hour, playing at La Peña tonight through Saturday. The show was named by the comic after both himself and The Bell Curve: Intelligence and Class Structure in American Life, the controversial 1994 book on intelligence test scores by Richard Herrnstein and Charles Murray. 

“It’s more compelling to talk about something more nuanced than ‘Bush is bad!’” Bell continued. “People say about Obama, ‘But he’s not funny!’ Yet he’s more interesting as a person—how smooth he is, how under control. Writing comedy about Bush is like writing about somebody falling downstairs—it’s too easy. The best comics are the ones dealing with what they have in front of them. If comedians are sad to see Bush go, they’re bad writers!” 

He talked about the challenge of a live satiric act: “The show always pushes me, because it’s topical. The fun part is to write it as it’s happening, to break the news stories. I read about O.J. Simpson getting convicted and talked about it in the show that night. I realized some of the audience hadn’t heard about it. It’s a great feeling: to be ahead of the news cycle—and to be funny! Part of comedy of course is honing something over time. Both of my directors have told me that I like to do new stuff because it’s dangerous. Martha Rynberg, my original director, who still works with me, developing my act, would let me open on the new stuff—which is considered kind of the wrong thing to do; you’re supposed to hide it in the middle.” 

Bell reflected on other things that’ve changed since he performed The Bell Curve at Pro Arts Gallery near Jack London Square just a year ago, and on his eagerness to play for East Bay audiences again. 

For starters, Bell was married last March 21. “Two big things that make comics funnier are marriage and kids. I’ve got the first one now.”  

“I’ve only played the East Bay a little bit,” said Bell, who’s based in San Francisco. “But those have been some of the most exciting times. It’s more diverse in the East Bay; that strengthens the show. Not just black and white, but across all lines. And it’s a younger crowd, too. When I played the art gallery, we wondered about it. It was way off the beaten path. But people found it—and they had to seek it out. I was kind of shocked.” 

“Every stand-up comic has to work in every kind of location, environment, circumstance,” Bell went on, “Bars, cafes, with and without microphones. ... It’s good training, makes you very adaptable. There’ve been times I’ve come in and they’ve pointed and said, ‘You play over there’—and I’ve said ‘Huh?’ Once at Cal State-East Bay, I was performing on a 3-by-3-foot stage with a wireless mic; if I moved, the stage would come up off the ground. And I was twice as old as the audience. Their concept of race was totally different than mine. I adapted the material to what was going on in the room. I felt it was more of a teaching moment, but I still wanted to be funny, to have them come to it in their own way, not to be didactic.” 

Bell, who advertises a two-for-one deal, “bring a friend of a different race,” spoke about his fascination with the dynamics of working with an audience: “How they get their information—one saying, ‘I never thought about that!’ and another, “I think about it every day.’ The buzz of recognition or comprehension in the room; I react to that. Some laugh Yes! Others laugh No! The crowd’s divided, but they’re all laughing. That’s the best reaction: to pick a side, not to sit there passively. You don’t have to be with me. In my solo show, I encourage people to talk.  

Doing stand-up in a club, they talk to interrupt. One time, doing my solo show, they started talking to each other. It was like a town hall meeting! I sat on the stage and said, ‘You finish it!’ Unlike TV, we’re aware in a room together. I’m just leading the charge. But if I’m not having fun, how can it be comedy?” 

Bell has played twice now at the Comedy Central Stage in Los Angeles, a development space where solo performers are invited to perform for 30 minutes in front of an audience that’s admitted free. Paul Stein, the artistic director of the Comedy Central Stage and formerly with HBO’s Workspace, who has a theater background, is directing Bell’s solo show now, which will play twice in the New York Fringe Festival, Aug. 14-30. The La Peña shows this weekend will be Bell’s last Bay Area dates before leaving for New York.  

Speaking of Dick Gregory, who played at the Rrazz Room last week in San Francisco with Mort Sahl, Bell remarked, “How he lived his life completely, Dick Gregory, of all comics—that’s the way you do it!” 

THE W. KAMAU BELL CURVE 

8 p.m. tonight through Saturday La Peña Cultural Center, 3105 Shattuck Ave. $15-$20. 849-2568. www.lapena.org. 

Too Big to Fail, the San Francisco Mime Troupe’s 50th anniversary show, swings through Berkeley again this weekend, playing outdoors in Willard Park Friday evening and Saturday afternoon. 

It’s a storytelling play, “in the tradition of the West African griots,” with song and dance, that follows a villager who takes a loan from a new Wall Street subsidiary in his neck of the jungle to become the Goat Lord of Kanabeedomo. Then economic downturn, symptoms of investment bubbles, of pyramid schemes—and Filije is faced with losing Bamusa the goat, his original, beloved collateral. 

The troupe will perform Too Big To Fail at 6:30 p.m. Friday and at 2 p.m. Saturday at Willard Park, with other local performances at 7 p.m. Aug. 6 at Oakland’s Lakeside Park; 2 p.m. Aug. 22 and 23 at Berkeley’s Live Oak Park; 2 p.m. Aug. 29 at Oakland’s Mosswood Park; and 7 p.m. Sept. 16 at Laney College in Oakland. All shows are free and preceded by a 30-minute music set. 

The show was written by Michael Gene Sullivan—who first saw the Mime Troupe in Golden Gate Park as a teenager when he aspired to teach history (“It was everything I wanted to do, in one event”)—and Ellen Callas, and features stage direction by Wilma Bonet and musical direction by Pat Moran (who penned music and lyrics). It is the latest and most topical offering of the Mime Troupe’s mission—as Sullivan put it—to challenge the stories of American-style capitalism.  

That mission came with the founding of the troupe in 1959 by R. G. Davis as a project of Actors Workshop, the seminal San Francisco theater company. Davis, a student of dance and of the founder of modern mime, Etienne Decroux (teacher of Jean-Louis Barrault and Marcel Marceau, who played Barrault’s father in Marcel Carne’s film, Children of Paradise), started a studio to explore mime and language, eventually leading to shows in the style of Commedia Dell’Arte, the Renaissance physical comedy with antecedents in the mimes of classical antiquity. 

Performing in the parks from the early ’60s, the Mime Troupe found itself in run-ins with the law, from obscenity busts for reciting Jean Genet’s “Chant D’Amour” to its civil rights satire A Minstrel Show, immortalized in Robert Nelson’s film, Oh Dem Watermelons. Davis has spoken about the close collaboration at the time with now well-known composers like Steve Reich and Morton Subotnick, experimental poets, filmmakers and political journalists. Luis Valdez left the company to found Teatro Campesino; Peter Coyote, a former Digger, went into movies; Bill Graham, Mime Troupe business manager, started his career as impresario staging benefits for the troupe’s bail fund. (Davis remembers seven busts, on various charges.) 

Davis, who remains on the board of the troupe, left the company in 1970, partly in disagreement over a shift in style towards a kind of musical comedy in the streets, what the Mime Troupe has performed ever since. Joan Holden, who wrote about 30 plays for the troupe, counters that “melodrama,” as Davis characterized what succeeded Commedia, was a more familiar American storytelling style with “undreamed power” to put over the social issues the Mime Troupe addressed, particularly, in the ’70s, the Women’s Movement. 

Holden, director Dan Chumley and composer Bruce Barthol (once of Country Joe and the Fish) typified the troupe’s production team for the closing decades of the last century; Sullivan, Velina Brown and Ed Holmes are names more familiar to its audiences today. 

The old timers exclaim over its unexpected longevity. But Sullivan has expressed what may be the real heart of the company’s continuing mission: to contribute to the creation of a world in which the Mime Troupe would be unnecessary. “We still have a long ways to go,” he said. 

TOO BIG TO FAIL 

6:30 p.m. Friday and at 2 p.m. Saturday at Willard Park, Berkeley. All shows are free. For information on the continuing celebrations, exhibitions and discussions of the Mime Troupe, through this coming fall and winter, call (415) 285-1717 or go to www.sfmt.org.  

Whether it’s toiling in a chain gang, getting pickpocketed in a lowlife inn or fighting with hopeless courage on a Parisian barricade, the swirling onstage action and musical fanfare of Les Miserables would keep any company of actors and techs busy with the breakneck scene changes alone—much less a troupe of aspiring teenage performing artists, who take on the singing, dancing, emoting roles of principal and supporting characters, besides making up the ever-changing, ever-active chorus. 

But backed by a full orchestra, 15 musicians under the familiar hand of Dave Malloy (Shotgun Players, Ten Red Hen, CalShakes), the players of Youth Musical Theater Company trouped through the tumultuous epic that frames both inspirational and love stories, learning about becoming an ensemble in the process, perhaps the greatest triumph any band of actors can experience—to be a company. 

One of the clearest examples came near the conclusion, when Marius, wounded in the streetfighting, but saved by constantly self-sacrificing Jean Valjean, returns to the cafe where he joined the insurrection, singing mornfully as he sees, in his mind’s eye, his dead comrades make a silent uproar in their old haunts, just as they did before being sacrificed in the 1832 Revolution—the event that inspired Victor Hugo to write his historical romance, as well as Stendhal’s conception of what many consider the first modern novel, The Red and the Black.  

(Though the story of Les Miserables is remembered more for Jean Valjean, who changes his life when a priest he’s stolen from intercedes with the police to save him, and the implacable figure of Inspector Javert, ever dogging Valjean’s footsteps to catch him when he falls, it’s worth saying that Hugo is credited with writing the first books with titles naming masses, not individuals, as subject: Les Miserables, Toilers of the Sea ... ) 

Opening night was a sell-out at the Julia Morgan Center, alive with the excitement of family and friends and the fervor of the cast. Some of the YMTC players are off to university in a few weeks, but even a few of those may be back to audition in late March for next summer’s show, Mothers of Ludlow, the premiere of a new musical. The Les Miserables cast of 31 includes seventh-graders through college sophomores.  

(The next YMTC production is A Chorus Line, opening Oct. 16 at the Julia Morgan, like other YMTC mainstage shows.) 

Founded in 1997, as Youth Musical Theater Commons (formerly Middle School Musical Theater), YMTC acquired its present name along with nonprofit status in 2004. The continuity of the program and dedication of its young performers can be judged by the participation of Simone Kertesz, playing tragic, exploited Fantine, who—dying—exhorts Valjean to care for her little girl, Cosette, the role that Simone, now a sophomore at Chico State, performed in 2003 when YMTC first essayed Les Miserables. 

Introduced at the start, when Javert admonishes Jean Valjean as a prisoner not to forget him, Jordan Anderson, a senior at Berkeley High and a five-show YMTC veteran, and Tomas Moreno-Johnson, a Lick-Wilmerding senior, cut good figures onstage in their roles, Moreno-Johnson singing sweetly in the higher registers, the quieter numbers.  

As the romantic ingenues Cosette and Marius, Sofia Christensen (a Berkeley High senior in her sixth YMTC show) and David Crane (a UCLA sophomore) have much presence, Crane having the voice of a stage singer. Marnina Wirtschafter (a Berkeley High junior, whose third YMTC production will be A Chorus Line) pumps out her breaking heart as Eponine, hopelessly in love with Marius, and Dorothy Gray (a junior at Albany High) flashes a wicked grin, missing a tooth, as Mme. Thenardier. (Gray notes that, after playing an insane granny in Into the Woods last year, she can’t decide if the abusive mother in Les Miserables is a step up or down.)  

Gabe Hermann (a freshman at American River College) plays the factory foreman who mistreats Fantine with appropriate menace, but it’s Jacob Basri (Sarah Lawrence freshman and seven-time YMTC player) who has the plum role as comic villain Thenardier (alternating with Berkeley High sophomore Alex Senauke)—and makes the most of it, stepping into “Master of the House” with a funny, snaky walk between a slink and a strut, leering and picking pockets when nobody but the audience is watching—a charming ogre to offset the stiff uprightness of antagonist Javert. 

Yet, again, it’s the kaleidoscopic chorus that gives Les Miserables its substance and its tone, as a face or two surfaces, disappears, and comes around again, playing a different role—Hugo’s seemingly anonymous crowd, the ensemble of young actors, backed by a cadre of adult volunteers, that puts the story over with their excitement and hard work, not (as YMTC artistic director Jennifer Boesing, who directed Les Miserables, points out) in spite of their youth, but because of it. 

LES MISERABLES 

Youth Musical Theater Company 

8 p.m. Saturday, 2 p.m. Sunday 

Julia Morgan Center for the Arts 

2640 College Ave.  

$8-$20.  

595-5514. www.brownpapertickets.com. 

“I don’t know if Obama can unite the Democrats and Republicans,” said satiric songwriter-singer Roy Zimmerman, who will perform at Freight and Salvage Friday night, “but he can unite a subject with a predicate! But fortunately, my job’s not just to make fun of the president.” 

Zimmerman nonetheless hit the campaign trail last year, with a “campaign promise” to tour all 50 states, including going to the conventions. “I made it to 47 of them.” At the Republican convention, he saw “Every kind of white person! ... The rest were staged carefully. It was amazing to be there.” There’s a “soundtrack” for his tour, Thanks for the Support, Roy. 

Concerning the post-election scene, Zimmerman said, “Considering the Republicans represent both kinds—the Haves and Have-Lots—they’re having hard times finding the narrative link; nothing to hang it on. And of course people are concerned about what’s happening with Obama’s promises, Hope and Change. But it’s been six months and there’s no slump in interest.” 

Zimmerman, whose website (www.royzimmerman.com) announces “Funny Songs About Ignorance, War and Greed,” has been praised by Tom Lehrer and Joni Mitchell. Raised in the Bay Area, where he now lives again with his family, he co-founded the quartet The Foremen in Southern California in 1988, a kind of revival of ’50s-’60s groups like The Kingston Trio and The Limelighters, with a satirical mission.  

His own output features more than six solo CDs and songbooks with DVDs, like How (and Why) To Play ‘Peacenik’—Peacenik being an earlier CD. 

His material bears an obvious left-wing slant. He’s aware of a difference: “We used to have a name for right-wing satire: we called it ‘cruelty.’” 

ROY ZIMMERMAN 

8 p.m. at Freight and Salvage,  

1111 Addison St.  

$18.50-$19.50.  

548-1761. www.thefreight.org.  

The people of 17th century Devon made and enjoyed a wonderful apple cyder, and being a modern people (aren’t we always modern people?) they used a new-fangled mechanical press to make their cyder. The press was cleaned using lead shot and, when combined with the acid of the apples, left a residue that made more than a few folks sick. The Devon Colic was identified and explained by one Dr. George Baker in the mid-18th century and by the early 19th century, folks finally accepted the science and got the lead out. 

Lead poisoning is as old as lead’s discovery and use, and its ill effects were noticed as early as 200 BC in Rome (though I would guess that the moms of Asia Minor called this one first). First mined in Anatolia (ancient Turkey) some 8,500 years ago, lead was easy to work and was probably our first real exploration into metalwork. Acetate of Lead was a popular sweetener in Roman times (and we worry about our artificial sweeteners), even when its toxicity was suspected. I suppose we should be able to relate, living in a world where many of our current activities are the subject of great controversy (are you smoking as you read this?). 

Lead was used by Roman engineers to form pipe (they were sort of squarish, unlike our familiar round ones) and the Roman baths in Bath, England (called Aquae Sulis after the odd-winged God, Sulis, who inhabited the place) still have them operating and on display. In fact, our word plumbing comes directly from the word for lead, Plumbum (which is what you get when you sit in a bunch of plums, right?). 

It’s apocrypha that our cities still use lead pipes, as these were removed in response to increased awareness and concern for the ill effects of lead over the past 130 years or so. That said, we were using lead in solder for copper piping when I started out as a builder and it was only recently (about 1988) that, by mandate, lead solders were replaced with alternative “lead-free” ones.  

Despite the presence of some minor lead in these older copper systems, there isn’t much lead that comes off, except when significant amount of oxygen or acidity in water is present. Our water supply is fairly well-regulated and this remains a relatively small problem (as best as we can gauge at this point).  

But one lead component has remained all this while. This is the lowly faucet. Faucets, it turns out, still contain some lead and do shed this into our drinking glass. It’s a function of manufacturing and of leak prevention that we use this in faucets. Lead is pretty good at preventing pinholes in rough brass and copper metals and also provides a plasticizing or lubricating effect in the milling of these metals, especially brass, and brass has been the favorite of faucet manufacturers for a very long time as it is corrosion resistant and easy to work. 

Brass is largely copper and zinc, but even today, most brass is about 8 percent lead. Removal of the brass, while preserving good function has taken some innovation but it’s finally happening. 

About two years ago, in the September of 2006, California passed legislation to remove all but one quarter of 1 percent of the lead in all faucets from which we draw water to cook with or drink. This gave the manufacturers more than three years to comply. So this coming January, you should no longer be able to buy any kitchen or bathroom faucet that will not meet the current standard. This isn’t the first lead removal standard we’ve faced in the United States or the state, just the latest. 

I’ve been perusing websites that discuss California Assembly Bill 1953 (which mandates the lead reduction in faucets) and most are from faucet makers that start out with something like, “We’ve always led the way in innovation” and, “Part of our commitment to excellence is our guarantee that each product will move you to tears, send your children to college and help you finish that movie script you’ve been putting off all these years.” This makes me wonder if the new faucets might have problems. Well, frankly, I don’t know. I know that lead was really good for paints and that they’re just not quite as good as they used to be (not that I want to go back to lead paint) and asbestos fibers made for really good roof patching compounds (again, not wishing).  

So it might take us a little while to get this right, but I do think the industry should be supported in this laudable effort and I believe it’s worth investing in a new faucet at the place you get most of your drinking water from (if it’s fairly old). Of course, you don’t have to do this to meet AB 1953. The legislation is only designed to take the old stock off the shelf so that all future work will be a bit safer. 

Lead is a serious matter, especially for children up to the age of 6. All small children living in older homes should be tested. Ask your doctor. Lead is extremely toxic and inhibits development of the brain and other organs and can result in behavioral abnormalities and learning disabilities. Lead can also sicken adults, attacking kidney function or raising blood pressure. The current thinking is that there are no safe lead levels and that even minute levels of lead can produce illness. 

The EPA has said that they believe roughly 10-20 percent of our lead exposure can come from drinking water. While not earthshaking, this is certainly worthy of some attention. They have also said that roughly half of an infant’s exposure to lead can come from water if they consume primarily mixed formula (one more reason to breast-feed). If this is the case, it clearly becomes extremely important to consider changing faucets, have one’s piping tested for lead solders and, most of all, to use that simple practice of letting the water run a short while before filling the drinking glass (or baby bottle), especially first thing in the morning or anytime the faucet has not been run for a while. Fill up your watering can with the first gallon—the plants won’t mind. 

Strong evidence favors lead paint as being our primary source of lead exposure, so water’s probably not our chief worry as regards lead. Nevertheless, it can’t hurt for all of us to clean up our act just a bit more. To eschew the Devon Colic, the morbi metallici or Saturn (as were the diagnoses once pronounced) and turn in your 8 percent faucets as we embrace the new decade. 

Thanks to my great friend Charlie, raconteur/handyman par excellence for tipping me off to the coming spoilage date on faucets and for many other plumb good times. 

THURSDAY, JULY 30 

Dog Day Thursdays Come practice your reading skills by reading to a dog. A free, drop-in program at 2 and 2:35 p.m. at the Albany Library, 1247 Marin Ave. 526-3720, ext. 17. 

Hip-Hop Dance Class for Teens with Lateef at 4 p.m. at South Branch of the Berkeley Public Library, 1901 Russell St. 981-6260. 

Circle of Concern Vigil meets on West Lawn of UC campus across from Addison and Oxford, Thurs. at noon and Sun. at 1 p.m. to oppose UC weapons labs contracts. 848-8055. 

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

Summer Dance Party EveryThurs. at 7:30 p.m. at Live Oak Park. Teachers will lead a variety of dances from around the world. All ages at 7:30, teens and adults at 8:30. Cost is $2 children, $5 adults. 

FRIDAY, JULY 31 

“Celebrating the 10th Anniversary of Berkeley Liberation Radio 104.1” with music at 7 p.m. at Berkeley Fellowship Unitarian Universalists 1924 Cedar at Bonita. Cost is $5-$10. 776-4422. www.bfuu.org 

“Out of the Ashes” A Project Peace Film Festival, featuring films by Bay Area female filmmakers, to benefit Oakland Elizabeth House, from 7 to 10:30 p.m. at Gaia Arts Center, 2120 Allston Way. Tickets are $10. For reservations see www.projectpeaceeastbay.org 

Circle Dancing, simple folk dancing with instruction at 7:30 p.m. at Finnish Brotherhood Hall, 1970 Chestnut St at University. Donation of $5 requested. 528-4253. www.circledancing.com 

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 

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

SATURDAY, AUGUST 1 

Walking Tour: Rezoning: Facing Oakland’s Future A walk and discussion of density, height, views and historic preservation. Meet at 11 a.m. at the Key System Mural, 11th and Broadway, NE corner, Oakland. Sponsored by Oakland Heritage Alliance. Cost is $10-$15. 763-9218. 

Walking Tour of Old Oakland around Preservation Park to see Victorian architecture. Meet at 10 a.m. in front of Preservation Park at 13th St. and MLK, Jr. Way. Tour lasts 90 minutes. Reservations can be made by calling 238-3234. www.oaklandnet.com/walkingtours 

Mega-Science: Make Things That Go “Pop” An interactive program for ages 7-12 from 10:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. at the Tilden Nature Center, Tilden Park. Cost is $6-$8. Registration required. 1-888-327-2757. 

Helmet Safety for Toddlers and a tricycle rodeo, from 10:30 a.m. to noon, and 3:30 to 4:30 p.m. at Habitot children’s Museum, 2065 Kittredge St. 647-1111. www.habitot.org 

Benefit for the East Bay Sanctuary Covenant with local jazz and world music at 7 p.m. at Berkeley Fellowship of Unitarian-Universalist Hall, 1924 Cedar St. Suggested donation $15. 841-4824. 

Doi-Moi: Renewal of Society in Vietnam in a Time of Fundamental World Change” Discussion from 10 a.m. to noon at the Niebyl-Proctor Marxist Library, 6501 Telegraph Ave. Sponsored the the Political Affairs Readers Group. For reading materials call 595-7417. 

Superhero Weekend at Playland-Not-At-The-Beach Sat. and Sun. from 10 a.m. to 5p.m.. at 10979 San Pablo Ave., El Cerrito. Cost is $10-$15. 592-3002. 

Free Garden Tours at Regional Parks Botanic Garden Sat. and Sun. at 11 a.m. and 2 pm. Regional Parks Botanic Garden, Tilden Park. Call to confirm. 841-8732. www.nativeplants.org 

Lawn Bowling on the green at the corner of Acton St. and Bancroft Way every Wed. and Sat. at 10 a.m. for ages 12 and up. Wear flat soled shoes, no heels. Free lessons. 841-2174.  

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, AUGUST 2 

12th Annual Bay to Barkers Dog Walk and Festival from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. at North Parking Lot of Golden Gate Fields, 1100 Eastshore Hwy. Take the Buchanan St./Albany exit from I-80 or I-580. Cost is $25 per dog, $30 on day of event. www.berkeleyhumane.org 

Walking Tour: 20 Years Later: Loma Prieta & Oakland’s Downtown Meet at 10 a.m. at The African American Museum and Library, 659 14th St., Oakland. Sponsored by Oakland Heritage Alliance. Cost is $10-$15. 763-9218. 

Yanga Celebration A carnaval of black culture in Mexico with music and dance from noon to 4 p.m. at Oakland Museum of California, 10th and Oak Sts.Cost is $5-$8. 238-2200. www.museumca.org 

Social Action Summer Forum “Rights of Farm Animals” with Kristie Phelps, of In Defense of Animals 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 11 a.m. and 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 

MONDAY, AUGUST 3 

Golden Gate Audubon Society Field Trip to Martin Luther King, Jr. Shoreline to look for newly arriving shorebirds, raptors and passerines, from 9 a.m. to 11 a.m. at Arrowhead Marsh. For details call 845-5001. www.goldengateaudubon.org 

Reduce Your Personal and Community Carbon Footprint Four-session Climate Change Action Group. Mondays or Tuesdays from 6-8pm at the Ecology Center. www.ecolgycenter.org  

Community Yoga Class 10 a.m. at James Kenney Parks and Rec. Center at Virginia and 8th. Seniors and beginners welcome. Cost is $6. 207-4501. 

“Castoffs” Knitting Group meets at 7 p.m. at Kensington Library, 61 Arlington Ave., Kensington. 524-3043.  

Drop-in Knitting Group Work on your own project or make pet blankets and children’s hats for donation. Yarn, needles and instruction provided. From 3:30 to 5 p.m. at the Albany Library, 1247 Marin Ave., Albany. 536-3720. 

East Bay Track Club for girls and boys ages 3-15 meets Mon. and Wed. at 6 p.m. at Berkeley High School track field. Free. 776-7451. 

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. 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 

TUESDAY, AUGUST 4 

National Night Out/Stop the Violence Block Party from 3 to 8 p.m. on mcGee St., between Stuart and Oregon. Free. 981-5147. 

Over the Hills Gang Hikers 55 years and older explore Redwood Regional Park from 10 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. For details call 544-2233. 

Tuesday Twilights: Sunset Moonrise Hike at 7 p.m. at the Miller/Knox Regional Shoreline, led by Bethany Facendini, naturalist. There are some ups and downs on this 2.5 mile hike. For details and meeting place call 544-2233. 

Lawyer in the Library Sign up in advance for a free 15 minute consultation with an attorney, from 6 to 8 p.m. at the Albany Library, 1247 Marin Ave., Albany. 536-3720, ext. 5. 

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 

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., Sat. and Sun. from 2 to 6 p.m. at at 84 Bolivar Dr., Aquatic Park. 644-2577.  

Berkeley Camera Club meets at 7:30 p.m., at the Northbrae Community Church, 941 The Alameda. 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 always welcome new members over 50. 845-6830. 

Bridge for beginners from 12:30 to 2:15 p.m., all others 12:30 to 4 p.m. Sing-A-Long at 2:30 p.m. at the North Berkeley Senior Center. 981-5190. 

WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 5 

Walking Tour of Jack London Waterfront Meet at 10 a.m. at the corner of Broadway and Embarcadero. Tour lasts 90 minutes. Reservations can be made by calling 238-3234. www.oaklandnet.com/walkingtours 

Berkeley Path Wanderers Self-guided Walk of Thousand Oaks Meet at 10 a.m. at Indian Rock Park, 950 Indian Rock Ave. 520-3876. www.berkeleypaths.org 

Red Cross Blood Drive from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. at Jacobs Carter & Burgess, 300 Frank Ogawa Plaza, Suite 10., Oakland. To schedule an appointment go to www.helpsavealife.org 

“Bum’s Paradise” a documentary of the people who lived in the Albany Landfill community, at 7:30 p.m. at Humanist Hall, 390 27th St., Oakland. Donation $5. www.Humanist Hall.org 

“The Life of a Wildlife Photographer” with Suzi Eszterhas at 7 p.m. at REI, 1338 San Pablo Ave. 527-4140. 

East Bay Innovation Group: Best Practices for Adapting to new Technologies, at 6 p.m. at RHI, 1999 Harrison St., Suite 1100. Cost is $10, free for members. www.ebig.org, rhilger@ebig.org 

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. 

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 6 p.m. at the Berkeley BART Station. www.geocities.com/ 

vigil4peace/vigil 

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

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

THURSDAY, AUGUST 6 

Peace Day and Origami Cranes with a reading of “Sadako and the Thousand Paper Cranes” from 3 to 5:30 p.m. in the 4th flr Story Room of the Berkeley Public Library, 2090 Kittredge. 981-6236. berkeleypubliclibrary.org 

“Persepolis” Film showing in support of the uprising of the Iranian people, followed by discussion at 7 p.m. at Humanist Hall, 6390 27th St., midtown Oakland. Donation $5-$15 sliding scale. 848-1196. 

Summer Dance Party EveryThurs. at 7:30 p.m. at Live Oak Park. Teachers will lead a variety of dances from around the world. All ages at 7:30, teens and adults at 8:30. Cost is $2 children, $5 adults. 

“Backpacking 101” covering all the fundamentals at 7 p.m. at REI, 1338 San Pablo Ave. 527-4140. 

Circle of Concern Vigil meets on West Lawn of UC campus across from Addison and Oxford, Thurs. at noon and Sun. at 1 p.m. to oppose UC weapons labs contracts. 848-8055. 

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

FRIDAY, AUGUST 7 

Earthquake Safety Class for families from 10:30 a.m. to noon at Habitot Children’s Museum, 2065 Kittredge St. 647-1111. www.habitot.org 

Circle Dancing, simple folk dancing with instruction at 7:30 p.m. at Finnish Brotherhood Hall, 1970 Chestnut St at University. Donation of $5 requested. 528-4253. www.circledancing.com 

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. 

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

SATURDAY, AUGUST 8 

Bay Area Peace Lantern Ceremony at 6:30 p.m. at North end of Aquatic Park, in honor of the 64th Anniversary of Hiroshima (Aug. 6) and Nagasaki (Aug. 9) Bombings. www.progressiveportal.org/lanterns 

Walking Tour of Old Oakland Uptown to the Lake to discover Art Deco landmarks. Meet at 10 a.m. in front of the Paramount Theater at 2025 Broadway. Tour lasts 90 minutes. Reservations can be made by calling 238-3234. 

Berkeley Path Wanderers: Campus, Holy Hill and Northside Walk Meet at 10 a.m. at Founders Rock, Galey Rd. at Hearst. This walk has some steep hills. 520-3876. www.berkeleypaths.org 

Walking Tour of Piedmont Avenue Meet at 2 p.m. at the Avenue Elementary School, 4314 Piedmont Ave. at John St. Cost is $10-$15. Sponsored by The Oakland Heritage Alliance. 763-9218. 

Survivors International “The Massacre in Gatumba” with testimonies, video presentations at 3:30 p.m. at Oakland Main Library, West Auditorium, 124 14th St., Oakland. 

The East Bay Chapter of The Great War Society meets to discuss WWI Fighter Planes, presented by Jim Folger & Bob Denison at 10:30 a.m. at the Albany Veterans Hall, 1325 Portland Ave., Albany. 527-7118. 

Sushi for the More Adventurous A hands-on class to learn about the cultural and natural history of this ancient cuisine, from 11:30 a.m. to 2:30 p.m. Cost is $30-$40. Registraion required. 1-888-327-2757. 

Chutes at the Beach at Playland-Not-At-The-Beach with cast and crew, Sat. and Sun. at 10979 San Pablo Ave., El Cerrito. Costs is $10-$15. 932-8966. www.playland-not-at-the-beach.org 

Free Garden Tours at Regional Parks Botanic Garden Sat. and Sun. at 11 a.m. and 2 pm. Regional Parks Botanic Garden, Tilden Park. Call to confirm. 841-8732. www.nativeplants.org 

Lawn Bowling on the green at the corner of Acton St. and Bancroft Way every Wed. and Sat. at 10 a.m. for ages 12 and up. Wear flat soled shoes, no heels. Free lessons. 841-2174.  

Open Shop at Berkeley Boathouse from 1 to 5 p.m. at at 84 Bolivar Dr., Aquatic Park. Take part in constructing a wooden boat or help out with other maritime projects. No experience necessary. First time is free, cost is $10 per day. 644-2577. www.watersideworkshops.org 

SUNDAY, AUGUST 9 

Toddler Nature Walk to look for butterflies, bees and other creatures, for ages 2-3 and their grown-up friends, at 10:30 a.m. at Tilden Nature Center, Tilden Park. 544-2233. 

Little Farm Open House Come grind some corn to feed the chickens, pet a bunny, groom a goat, or help out in the Kid’s Garden, from 1:30 to 3 p.m. at the Little Farm in Tilden Park. 544-2233. 

Walking Tour of Chinatown Oakland Meet at 10 a.m. at the fountain of Pacific Renaissance Plaza, 9th St. between Webster and Franklin Streets. Cost is $10-$15. Sponsored by Oakland Heritage Alliance. 763-9218. 

Family Explorations Day Sumer Reading Program with stories, art activities, magic, cartooning and more from 12:30 to 4:30 p.m. at Oakland Museum of California, 10th and Oak Sts. Free.238-2200. www.museumca.org 

“The Living New Deal in the East Bay” a slide show and discussion with Gray Brechin at 7 p.m. at Berkeley Fellowship of Unitarian-Universalist Hall, 1924 Cedar St. 841-4824. 

Social Action Summer Forum “The Obama Administration and Social Justice” with Prof. Charles Henry, at 10 a.m. at the Unitarian Universalist Church of Berkeley, 1 Lawson Rd., Kensington. 525-0302, ext. 306. 

Free Hands-on Bicycle Clinic Learn how to repair a flat, from 10 to 11 a.m. at REI, 1338 San Pablo Ave. Bring your bike and tools. 527-4140. 

Benefit for Nangchen Nuns “A Day of Meditation & Tibetan Qigong” at 10 a.m. at Dondrub Ling Dharma Center, 2748 Adeline. Donations. To register call 707-224-5613. 

Free Garden Tours at Regional Parks Botanic Garden in Tilden Park Sat. and Sun. at 11 a.m. and 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