Every penny counted at Berkeley High School’s “Relief for Haiti” campaign. -more-

Faced with an $80,000 cut in its aquatics program due to a major budget crisis, Berkeley’s Parks, Recreation and Waterfront Department is proposing closure for Willard Pool in July. -more-

Wareham Development has threatened to sue the City of Berkeley if it allows a cannabis clinic to move into the old Scharffen Berger building in West Berkeley. -more-

The Berkeley City Council joined the fight to free three UC Berkeley graduates detained in Iran Tuesday when it voted to send a letter urging Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to release the trio. -more-

The Berkeley Board of Education honored B-Tech Principal Victor Diaz, bid farewell to Berkeley High football coach Alonzo Carter and approved a solar grant for Rosa Parks Elementary School at its Jan 20 meeting. -more-

A 34-year-old Oakland man was in custody Tuesday after being arrested on suspicion of robbing a bank in Berkeley on Monday afternoon, police said today. -more-

Rigoberto Alvarado says he’s living the American Dream. He came to the United States with very little money and no knowledge of English and worked his way up to a manager position at Oakland’s Waterfront Hotel. -more-

BART announced Wednesday it had reached a $1.5 million settlement with the mother of Oscar Grant’s young daughter Tatiana. -more-

Worldwide, half a million women die each year in childbirth, most of them in Africa and Asia. When Laura Stachel, a medical doctor who lives in Berkeley, went to Nigeria in 2008, she witnessed hospital conditions that make not only childbirth but all medical care difficult and unreliable. Resolving to change that situation, she and her husband, Hal Aronson, an educator and solar expert, formed an organization, WE CARE Solar, whose mission is “saving mothers’ lives with solar-powered light and communication.” -more-

By Ruth Rosen -more-

By Shirley Barker -more-

Southwest of the intersection of Sacramento and Rose streets in north central Berkeley there’s a site with a century and a half of hidden history. The story involves what was Berkeley’s second oldest house, early local farm life, a nearly forgotten reverse in university expansion, and a final outcome that’s visible today, a small residential subdivision built on the eve of World War II. -more-

Remembering -more-

The idea of the Berkeley Downtown Plan was vetted last month by the ostensible representatives of the 5th and 6th districts. I call them “ostensible representatives” rather than “real” ones because they actively tried to stop the petition campaign to put this highly controversial Downtown Plan on the ballot. It was an overtly anti-democratic stance. The term “representative” needs to be reserved for those who foster as well as believe in democracy. But at their meeting, they spoke about their “dream” for downtown, I suppose in the hopes that we would represent them when it came time to vote. -more-

Full disclosure: I go to downtown Berkeley, a lot. Last year I spent about $4,000 on downtown enterprises, including gym memberships, pharmacy items, photocopying, movies, plays, restaurants, stationery, computer repairs, hardware, and, not least, the Saturday Farmers Market. For me downtown is a place to shop, a place for entertainment, (and a place to hunt for parking, more on that later).   -more-

The New York Times (Jan. 16, 2010) ran an article about the dysfunction at one of KPFA’s sister stations, the New York Pacifica affiliate: WBAI. It mentioned the ultra-left sectarianism of various board members and the personal attacks on the chair disguised behind politically correct line variations. -more-

It was heartening to see the response of the community during the Jan. 19 Berkeley City Council meeting, particularly the sense of outrage many citizens expressed towards the council’s mostly cavalier attitude toward Berkeley Iceland’s future. Instead of embracing the efforts of a determined and able group, Save Berkeley Iceland (SBI), the council attempted to subvert the law and threaten Iceland’s landmark status. -more-

Last Thursday, after holding a meeting solely about Pacific Steel Casting Company (PSC), the Zoning Adjustments Board (ZAB) postponed its decision to accept or reject PSC’s most recent annual performance review. The West Berkeley Alliance for Clean Air and Safe Jobs had urged the ZAB to modify PSC’s use permit to ensure air cleanup. The decision to postpone came at the end of a sometimes dramatic meeting that demonstrated the way the city of Berkeley is run. The meeting process raised alarming questions about the way commissions like the ZAB are manipulated for political purposes by elected officials, city staff, and the corporate interests they often serve. -more-

The California Democracy Act, a non-partisan constitutional amendment authored by Cal Professor George Lakoff, consists in its entirety of a mere 14 words: -more-

The most important job you have in this lifetime is to raise your kids properly. With that in mind, my wife and I decided NOT to vaccinate our children soon after the birth of our first son in 1985. This decision was a well-thought out one. We weighed both sides carefully and made the choice in the interests of our kid’s future. We were happy to find out that our choice was guaranteed under California Health and Safety Code Section 120365 and also by federal law. It should also be noted that the American Medical Association is currently working to deny freedom of choice in this matter. If the AMA truly believes vaccination protects from disease, why would unvaccinated children be a threat to vaccinated ones? -more-

A Jan. 13, 2010, Student Conduct panel upheld an “interim suspension” placed on UC Berkeley Junior Angela Miller, a student activist who is accused of violating the Code of Student Conduct for participating in a demonstration on Dec. 11, 2009. The panel’s suspension banned Ms. Miller from campus property, ordered her not to communicate with any faculty or student, and evicted her from off-campus housing. -more-

Yes, Martha Coakley managed to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory in the recent special Senate election in Massachusetts. I wonder how much campaigning the Kennedy clan did for her. Guess there is no such thing as a “Kennedy” seat in Massachusetts anymore. -more-

Most people do not know that the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory is almost entirely sited on a caldeara, a collapsed volcano. Below this caldera there is the Hayward Fault, which cuts through Memorial Stadium and across the bottom of the hills. The Hayward Fault is due for a magnitude 6.5 to 7.0 earthquake anytime within the next 30 years. Still, LBNL plans to build up to a million square feet of research facilities on its steep and unstable hills above the city and UC campus. -more-

We have long recognized California Attorney General Jerry Brown as the great artful dodger of our time, more skilled than most at being able to avoid the political consequences of his various positions and official actions. -more-

The Wall Street meltdown in the fall of 2008 had striking parallels to the destruction of the twin towers on Sept. 11, 2001. In both cases there were unheeded warnings, a traumatic event, a problematic initial response, and a failure to punish the perpetrators. Will financial terrorism flourish, as has jihadi terrorism? -more-

I think of myself as one who lives to revel in the sounds of the world, much of—if not all—the time. I don’t want to live in an anechoic chamber, devoid of sound, devoid of the joyful noises of NPR and of Dexter. Screaming is good. I like screaming. -more-

How long do birds live? That question is surprisingly hard to answer, in part because of the range of lifespans involved and in part because of data limitations. Apart from captive birds, what we know about avian longevity is based on recovery of wild individuals that have been banded. And recovery of banded birds is so rare that there’s not really enough information to calculate meaningful averages. What we have to work with are the extremes. -more-