Saying the University of California's sharply misguided priorities call for unprecedented and unified action, two University of California employees represented by the American Federation of State County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME) Local 3299 have joined students in a hunger strike at the UC Berkeley campus. Today's action comes after workers last week called on prominent graduation speakers at UC campuses statewide to refuse to deliver their commencement addresses unless workers' demands are met (see list of demands below).  

Abel Salas, a gardener at UC Berkeley, and the latest addition to the hunger strikers, said, "It is the most important thing we can do, to show that students and workers deeply care about these issues and each other, and are both willing to put our bodies on the line for justice." 

Maricruz Manzanares, a custodian who also joined the students in the hunger strike, said,  

"If UC can afford millions in pay raises for executives, the University can certainly afford to keep front-line workers on the job to keep the campus healthy and safe. Students realize that a strong educational community includes the dedicated staff who keep the university running, and we join with students in demanding that UC make education -- not executive perks -- its top priority."  

Workers say UC has for too long ignored the calls of students and staff to halt raises and bonuses for UC executives while classes are overflowing, students are turned away, and low-wage workers see their hours and jobs cut.  

UC executives claim that the cuts to workers’ jobs and hours are a necessary byproduct of reduced state funding, but workers who are struggling to keep their homes and feed their families see things differently. According to Lakesha Harrison, president of AFSCME 3299, “UC executives claim to be saving $7 million by cutting low wage workers. Yet UC executives have received over $9 million in bonuses and raises since the cuts were implemented. This is just wrong.”  

Full-time UC workers making as little as $12 per hour, or $24,000 annually are experiencing anywhere between 4% to 20% reductions in take-home pay. As a result, many of these workers at UC are being pushed into poverty, losing their homes, and having to work multiple jobs to support their families. 

AFSCME 3299 and UPTE Local 1, two of the largest unions representing UC Berkeley workers, have called for a speakers' boycott of UC Berkeley graduations, and today said that they will not call off their upcoming speakers boycott of UC graduations unless the hunger strikers’ demands are met. The boycott asks prominent commencement speakers to refuse to address graduations unless UC: 

1) Restores jobs for laid off service workers, Cal Performances workers, and UPTE union activists at UC Berkeley 

2) Restores the hours that were cut from low-wage service workers at UC Berkeley 

3) Drops the student conduct charges that occurred during the academic year 2009-10. Students should not be prosecuted for peacefully protesting UC executives' misplaced priorities. 

4) Commits to doing everything within UC’s power to preserve quality, affordable benefits for UC workers 

5) Suspends the student code of conduct and initiates a democratic, student-led process to review the code.  

6) Accepts responsibility for the violence and escalation of the confrontation surrounding Wheeler Hall on November 20th that resulted in injuries to many students and commits to using non-violent means of ensuring safety at student demonstrations in the future. 

7) Publicly denounces Arizona's law and deems UC Berkeley a sanctuary campus for immigrant students and workers. 

On Wednesday evening, it appeared a resolution was within reach to end the three-day hunger strike by students, workers and other members of the UC Berkeley community. The strike began Monday with demands of denouncing racist legislation in Arizona, creating a sanctuary campus and ending retaliation against student and worker activists (see next page for complete demands). As five negotiators were entering California Hall; Tanya Smith, the lone UC employee on the team, was denied entry into the building. “The police blocked the door and indicated that no union members would be allowed to enter,” said Smith; who also is the campus President of U.P.T.E., a UC union. “Then Isaac Castro, a fellow negotiator, came to join me outside and the police lost control”. 

“When I saw that they blocked Tanya’s entrance, I decided to leave the building”, said Isaac Castro a fifth year student who is participating in the strike. “I guess they thought I was trying to prop the door open because they immediately brought me to the floor. After being detained for a few minutes they realized their mistake and let me leave. But I’m still shocked at how quick they were to restrain me when all I wanted to do was stand in solidarity with a worker on my campus. Why are they so afraid of students and workers joining together for this hunger strike?” 

“Our demands are very reasonable and there is no need for these intimidation tactics by Vice Chancellor Breslauer and Chancellor Birgeneau”, says Kathy Vega, a 3rd year student majoring in Political Science. ”They have shown they never intended to discuss our demands. Our hunger strike is a completely non-violent act which will continue until all of our demands are met. From now on we will only negotiate with the Administration with our complete team, including UC workers”. 

A rally is planned for Thursday to protest the administration’s tactics and support the ongoing demands of the hunger strike. 

An Alameda County Superior Court jury today began deliberating the fate of a man charged with murder for the stabbing death of University of California at Berkeley senior Christopher Wootton near campus two years ago.  

Wootton was stabbed during a confrontation in the parking lot of a sorority house in the 2400 block of Warring Street at about 2:45 a.m. May 3, 2008. 

Yolanda Huang, the defense attorney for 22-year-old defendant Andrew Hoeft-Edenfield, told jurors in her closing argument on Tuesday that Wootton's death "could well have been an accident." 

The stabbing occurred at the end of a drunken shouting match that developed when Hoeft-Edenfield and a group of his friends encountered Wootton and his friends on a street near campus. 

Huang admitted that Hoeft-Edenfield, who worked at Jamba Juice in Berkeley and attended Berkeley City College, stabbed Wootton but said he acted in self-defense after he was outnumbered, surrounded, kicked and stomped by Wootton and a large group of Wootton's friends.  

Huang said Hoeft-Edenfield should be acquitted, telling jurors, "It's time for you to send Mr. Hoeft-Edenfield home to his family and for this to be over."  

But prosecutor Connie Campbell said, "To call this an accident is outrageous." Campbell said Hoeft-Edenfield intentionally drove his three-and-a-half-inch knife into Wootton's chest with so much force that it broke a rib and created a gash in Wootton's heart, causing him to die from blood loss.  

"The number-one fact that tells you this is a murder is that broken rib," Campbell said.  

The prosecutor alleged that Hoeft-Edenfield and his friends had an opportunity to walk away from the confrontation but that Hoeft-Edenfield "wanted to be a bad ass with a knife and escalated a verbal altercation to a lethal situation." 

Wootton, 21, who was from Bellflower in Southern California, was only weeks away from graduating with honors in nuclear engineering. He planned to continue studying nuclear engineering in graduate school at UC Berkeley. 

Hoeft-Edenfield's lengthy trial started on March 16 and concluded late Tuesday after two full days of closing arguments by Campbell and Huang.  

The Oakland City Council voted Tuesday night to boycott Arizona and Arizona-based businesses to protest the state's tough new immigration law 

The resolution passed by the council states that Arizona's SB 1070 "sets the clock back on a generation of civil rights gains" and "will inevitably lead to racial profiling, jeopardize public safety and create a wedge between law enforcement and ethnic communities." 

Council members approved the nonbinding resolution 7-0. Ignacio De La Fuente missed the meeting due to a family emergency. At a news conference at City Hall last week, De La Fuente said he strongly supported the resolution. 

The law, which was signed on April 23 by Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer, gives police broad powers to detain people they suspect of being in the U.S. illegally.  

Oakland's boycott, with some exceptions, calls for city officials not to enter contracts with or purchase goods from companies with headquarters in Arizona; calls on city staffers to review existing contracts with Arizona companies; and vows to keep city employees from traveling to Arizona on official business. 

A number of other cities, including San Francisco, have called for or already implemented similar boycotts. 

In addition, a group of students at the University of California at Berkeley is in its third day of a hunger strike and is asking the university to publicly oppose the law. 

Paul Senseman, a spokesman for Brewer, denied that the law will lead to racial profiling, saying, "This bill's language specifically makes racial profiling illegal." 

"The bill merely mirrors existing federal law. It is neither 'tougher' or more stringent than the current federal regulations of immigration," Senseman said.  

In the news today: Berkeley City Council postpones new marijuana regulations, tables fine proposal for large daycares, approves a proposal for amendments to Telegraph late night zoning; hunger strike at UC Berkeley against Arizona immigration bill strengthens;Berkeley Rep plays get Tony nominations and Berkeley police ask for help on missing teen. 

City Council forms committee to gauge new medical cannabis clinic regulations 

The Berkeley City Council at Tuesday's meeting did not have enough votes to pass a new policy which would have allowed the city's three cannabis dispensaries to expand beyond retail space to grow cannabis and bake marijuana-laced baked goods in residential and commercial spaces. 

The Berkeley Medical Cannabis Commission had recommended a few improvements to existing city policy which would have given more protection to growers cultivating cannabis for medical purposes.  

The new policy would put a cap on the number of operations and how big they could be, and has support from the City Manager, the City Attorney and the Planning Department.  

But the city council chose to take a more conservative approach, with only three councilmembers—Max Anderson, Kriss Worthington and Jesse Arreguin—voting in favor of the new law. 

The council decided to form a four-person committee—comprised of Mayor Tom Bates, Linda Maio, Darryl Moore and Max Anderson—who will discuss the issue and come back with a recommendation. 

The committee will also look at a proposal from City Attorney Zach Cowan which aims to balance Berkeley's current deficit by increasing business taxes for medical marijuana dispensaries. 

Those dispensaries which seek non-profit status in the future will be taxed according to their square footage, similar to any big non-profit. If the council approves the tax at a future meeting, it will be put on the Nov. 2010 ballot. 

Daycare fines postponed by two weeks 

Large daycare center owners in Berkeley got some breathing room Tuesday when the City Council decided to postpone making any decisions on whether to fine them for not getting the proper permits or not paying license fees for their businesses. 

If the council had given the City Manager's office the green light to review these cases at the meeting, it would have developed an amnesty period during which large daycares operating without permits would be allowed to register their businesses without facing penalties. 

The group would also have to pay business fees due since 2007. 

However, some large daycare operators told council that when they went to the city's permit center to obtain the proper permits they were told it was not required. 

Councilmembers Kriss Worthington and Max Anderson objected to what they called a “punitive retroactive proposal.” and asked that it be tabled. 

Although small day care centers in Berkeley don't need to get permits, the big ones do. According to some city officials, sometimes when the small daycares expand, they just get certified by the Fire Department—as mandated by state law—but bypass getting a permit from the city. 

California law doesn't require big daycare centers to get special zoning permits. 

Changes to Telegraph Avenue and Panoramic Hill Zoning 

The Berkeley City Council unanimously voted to ask City Manager Phil Kamlarz to work with several commissions on proposals to modify the current Telegraph Avenue zoning. 

The changes would allow businesses to stay open until 3 a.m. with a zoning certificate 

Other adjustments include implementing a six month trial project to change the yellow loading zone parking regulations in the Telegraph commercial zone between Bancroft and Dwight Way to mirror the rest of the city's yellow zones, which revert to regular parking after 6 p.m. The council is expected to listen to the City Manager's recommendations in October. 

The council also approved changes to Panoramic Hill zoning after a discussion, but will be looking at parking requirements separately. 

UC Berkeley hunger strike against Arizona illegal immigration law gets stronger  

The UC Berkeley hunger strike urging university officials to publicly denounce Arizona's illegal immigration bill that began Monday at noon has garnered strength over the last couple of days. 

The fasters, comprised of Latino students and others, have a number of demands, including turning UC Berkeley into a sanctuary campus for undocumented immigrants, re-hiring laid off custodians and dropping charges against those who took part in the Wheeler Hall occupation earlier this year. 

This morning, a press release sent on behalf of the fasters said that although university officials have had informal conversations with the group, they have not agreed to any of the demands yet. 

The press release said that hundreds of students, faculty, staff and community members have stopped by the place near California Hall where the students, alumni and community members who are calling their coalition “Hungry for Justice” have set up camp. 

A local priest said Mass for the group at 11 a.m. Tuesday and up to 200 supporters took part in a 7 p.m. rally. 

The two largest unions on campus have supported the strike. 

Follow the strikers on their Facebook page.  

Two Plays Born at Berkeley Rep Gets SixTony Nominations 

American Idiotand In the Next Room (or “the vibrator play”) are two plays born at the Berkeley Rep which picked up six Tony nominations. The winners will be announced during a national broadcast June 13. Punk rock group Green Day's American Idiot premiered in Berkeley before going on to Broadway. The rock opera was nominated for three Tonys, including best musical. In the Next Room, which was also nominated for a Pulitzer, also chalked up three nominations, including best musical. For more information on the plays and the nominations visit berkeleyrep.org/press/pr.asp  

Berkeley police alert for missing teen 

Berkeley police Tuesday asked the community to remain alert about a missing teen who disappeared more than 14 years ago. 

John McColl vanished after telling his family he was going to a Telegraph Avenue bookstore on August 28, 1995. He was 16 then. His family have spent all this time wondering what happened to the teenager who was about to become a junior at Berkeley High. A member of the crew team, McColl was described by his family as a “quiet loving man who liked playing the guitar.” 

Anyone with any information about McColl can contact BDP at 981-5741 or 981-5900. 

Last Thursday night the Berkeley City Council unanimously approved the “Reduced Impact Alternative” BRT that is similar to “Rapid Bus Plus” as the “Locally Preferred Alternative.” It rejected the “Build Alternative” which would have removed traffic lanes and placed boarding stations in the middle of the street even though AC Transit sent a letter saying, more or less, that it was obliged to choose that alternative. This meeting with Bus Rapid Transit the only agenda item ended after 11:00 pm. Sixty-six members of the public were against the “Build Alternative,” twenty-three in favor and five asked all alternatives to be studied. Here are the alternatives.  

Since the draft EIR/EIS only studied the No-Build and the Full-Build, there was discussion between the AC Transit representative, Cory LaVigne, and the city’s attorney about whether a different alternative could now be studied. LaVigne said since it was not in the draft, it could not be studied in the final. It would have to be a special study, perhaps a supplemental EIR. So after the deed is done, AC Transit comes to the cities to ask them for their preferred alternative. But as the attorney assured the city council, the city itself, not AC Transit, determines changes to their streets. 

The council’s decision does not affect AC Transit’s ability to receive federal Small-Start funds because dedicated lanes are not one of the required criteria for BRT. But AC Transit’s fiscal condition may make them ineligible. See BRT Small Starts Fact Sheet.  

Councilmembers discussed the “environmental justice” of removing local service because it would impact the elderly and disabled. But retaining local service did not seem to be included in the “Reduced Impact Alternative.” It was part of the “Rapid Bus Plus” alternative. Also included in that alternative was splitting the line in downtown Oakland to avoid the bunching that occurs on very long lines like the #51. 

Some council members wanted to extend the BRT down University Ave. to Amtrak, which would mean it would connect to the San Pablo Rapid Bus, but AC Transit claimed it could not be studied now. 

Mayor Bates asked how Berkeley would connect to Oakland if they have dedicated lanes. The short answer was “awkwardly.” But Temescal residents are not likely to accept dedicated lanes:See this week’s article in the East Bay Express. 

Joyce Roy is a semi-retired architect and long-time Oakland transit activist. Partisan Position writers are not guaranteed to be impartial, although they are knowledgeable and hope to provide accurate factual information.  

[Editor's Note: This information was received as a press release at 3 on Monday afternoon. Berkeley Police Department Public Information Officer Jamie Perkins confirmed that the crime at Rabbi Michael Lerner's home in the 900 block of Cragmont was reported at 11:40 on Monday, and she said Monday at about 6 p.m. that police had no suspects as yet.]

Berkeley police today confirmed that the attack on Rabbi Lerner's home late Sunday May 2nd or early morning Monday May 3rd was in fact a crime and was being investigated. The attackers used a powerful form of glue to attach posters to his door and around the property of his home attacking Lerner personally, and attacking liberals and progressives as being supporters of terrorism and "Islamo-fascism."  

They posted a printed bumper sticker saying "fight terror--support Israel" next to a carcature of Judge Goldstone whose UN report on Israel's human rights violations in its attack on Gaza last year has been denounced as anti-Semitic and pro-terror by right wingers in Israel and the U.S.. The caricature has Goldstone talking about his being kept from his grandson's bar mitzvah, and the caricature of Rabbi Lerner responds by saying "any enemy of Israel is a friend of mine." This attack and vandalism follows on a week filled with Lerner and Tikkun staff receiving hate mail, prompted apparently by Tikkun's announcement that in case the South African Zionists had succeeded in preventing Judge Goldstone from attending his grandson's bar mitzvah, as they threatened several weeks ago, that Rabbi Lerner would gladly hold the bar mitzvah in the SF Bay Area instead, and following Tikkun's announcement that in light of Goldstone's courageous willingness to stand up for human rights in Israel (his report called on the Israeli government to do its own independent, pulbic and credibly objective investigation, punish those responsible for the crimes or show that they didn't happen, and thereby show that these actions were not government policy but the mistakes or evil choices by people in the IDF who were acting as rogue elements and not as a manifestation of the people of Israel) that Tikkun will award our prestigious Tikkun Award to Judge Goldstone in 2011 at the event celebrating our 25th anniversary! This story, which was prominent in Ha'aretz and many other Jewish magazines and websites, has intensified anger against Lerner and Tikkun among those who seek to perpetuate the Occupation, and great support among those who realize that the Occupation is really hurtful both to Israel and to the Jewish people world-wide. 

In the 24 years of Tikkun's operation, we have received many death threats and vicious hate mail, including phone calls to our office announcing that "Rabbi Lerner is dead" and others saying "We will kill all of you." This particular attack has two worrisome elements not previously there: 1. They attack Rabbi Lerner's home. As law enforcement people told us, this is a way of conveying the messaget to Lerner: "We know where you live, we know your house is vulnerable, so don't ignore our threats." 2. By linking Lerner to alleged terrorism, they provide for themselves and other extremists a "right-wing justification" to use violence against Lerner, even though Lerner has been a prominent advocate of non-violence. He regularly critiques Palestinian acts of violence when they occur, including the shelling of Israeli towns by Hamas, just as he critiques the violence of the Israeli occupation, and as he critiques the US war in Iraq and Afghanistan, the occupation of Chechny by Russia, the occupation of Tibet by China, the human rights violations agaisnt their own people by the rulers of Iran, the acts of violence of those resisting the US occupation of Iraq and Afghanistan, the violence against women and homosexuals in many Arab and African countries (and in the US and Israel as well), the genocide in Darfur, the violence against Jews in some parts of Europe, and the list goes on. 

Needless to say, this latest attack, on Lerner's home, has caused great concern to his family. 

In a previous email about the attack on Rabbi Lerner's house, the dates were incorrectly stated as June 2 and July 3rd, making it seem as though it had been in the distant past or near future. The emotional upset caused by this incident has thrown us for a loop, so sorry about that mistake. The actual date of the attack on Lerner's home was last night (May 2nd or early morning May 3rd) and discovered this morning, May 3rd. 

The police say that this is not a "hate crime" because the attackers were not attacking Rabbi Lerner for his religion, but for his politics. That is scant comfort for those of us who continue to beleve that America and Israel are best served by the voices willing to publicly share critique, though incidents like this are of course meant to scare people into silence. Tikkun will not be silenced.  

What can you do? Let people know that this kind of thing is happening in the Jewish world to people who critique Israeli policies. 

--Tikkun Magazine 

To reach Rabbi Lerner directly: RabbiLerner@Tikkun.org or call the Tikkun office at 510 644 1200.

In the news since the last issue: Zoning changes for Panoramic Hill and Telegraph, fines for daycare centers proposed, new marijuana regulations, 155-unit apartment complex for South Shattuck, credit card fraud, a music club in financial trouble, students begin hunger strike to protest immigration law. 

Tuesday City Council meeting to include special session on 2011 budget 

The Berkeley City Council meeting Tuesday will begin with a special 5:30 p.m. workshop on the proposed fiscal year 2011 city budget given by City Manager Phil Kamlarz and Budget Manager Tracey Vesley . It can be viewed online. The regular 7 p.m. Council meeting agenda includes Panoramic Hill zoning amendments as well as proposed adjustments to the Telegraph Avenue zoning laws. 

Berkeley Mayor Tom Bates and Councilmembers Laurie Capitelli, Kriss Worthington and Gordon Wozniak will request the City Manager to analyze and work with relevant commissions on proposed modifications in Telegraph's current commercial zoning which would permit businesses to extend their business hours to 3 a.m., Sunday through Saturday by simply getting a zoning certificate. 

Other adjustments include implementing a six month trial project to change the yellow loading zone parking regulations in the Telegraph commercial zone between Bancroft and Dwight Way to mirror the rest of the city's yellow zones, which revert to regular parking after 6 p.m. 

The City Manager is expected to return to council by Oct. 12 with recommendations for council action. 

Berkeley may fine large home family daycares  

The Berkeley City Council may also ask City Manager Phil Kamlarz Tuesday to review cases involving large, in-home family day care businesses whose owners have not obtained a Berkeley business license, not paid Berkeley business fees or don't have the appropriate use permit. 

After the City Manager's office finished the review, it would develop a 90-day amnesty program during which large family daycare providers who have not yet obtained business licenses would be given a chance to come forward and register their businesses without being subject to penalties. 

The city would also develop a payment plan for this group of daycare businesses, under which they would have to pay business fees due since 2007. 

According to a report from city staff, some providers may have to pay fees of up to $7000 to the city. A number of daycare owners have contacted the city saying that these exorbitant payments might force them out of business altogether. 

The staff report says that although the City Auditor has requested information from four large in-home family daycares, she has not yet received a response. 

Medical marijuana regulation changes 

The Berkeley City Council will also vote on whether to allow all three of the city’s medical marijuana dispensaries to expand beyond retail space to grow cannabis and bake marijuana-laced cookies and brownies in residential and commercial properties. Both city staff and the Medical Cannabis Commission are putting forward their own set of recommendations which vary regarding the size and scope of the proposed operations. 

The council will also vote on whether to approve language for a ballot measure for Nov. 2010 to amend the Business License Tax Ordinance to tax certain medical cannabis uses. 

City Attorney Zach Cowan has suggested that one way to balance the city's current deficit is to increase the business tax on medical cannabis dispensaries from 1.12 percent to 1.8 percent, which is expected to bring in $330,000 in 2011.  

In comparison, the city imposes a 15 percent tax on firearm and ammunition dealers, a 15 percent tax on private rubbish haulers and a 10 percent tax on private sporting events. 

In the scenario that a medical cannabis dispensary attains non-profit status and becomes exempt from business tax, Cowan said it would be taxed on the basis of its square feet, just as large non-profits already are. 

Berkeley approves $60 M Parker Place development 

Developers Ali Kashani and Mark Rhoades of City Centric Investments have received the entitlements to their Parker Place project, the SF Business Times reported today. 

Developers of the mixed-use apartment project with 155units, a 188-spot parking garage and 1900 square feet of retail space at 2600 Shattuck Ave. promise to revitalize an otherwise underutilized part of the neighborhood, but like a lot of other building projects, this one has met with some criticism. 

Twenty percent of the rental units will be affordable housing which will help the developers get access to low income housing tax credits. 

Berkeley police warn of credit card fraud 

The Berkeley Police Department is asking the community to watch out for credit card thefts which they say have escalated over the last few months. 

Although the police did not point toward specific cases, they said the problem was probably part of a larger operation and urged caution. 

Berkeley music venue in trouble 

The SF Chronicle reports text that the all volunteer underground music venue 924 Gilman St. is in trouble because of a high rent increase starting July 1 which may push it out of its home. 

The staff at 924 Gilman is reaching out to the community to raise the extra $31,000 required annually to cover the rent expenses, scheduling concerts, donation drives and there are plans to apply for non-profit status to qualify for special funds. 

UC Berkeley students begin hunger strike to protest Arizona Illegal Immigration Law 

A group of UC Berkeley students began a hunger strike on campus Monday demanding that Chancellor Robert Birgeneau oppose Arizona's illegal immigration law, call off disciplinary action against the protesters occupying Wheeler Hall to protest budget cuts, bring back laid off janitors and turn the Berkeley campus into a sanctuary for undocumented immigrants. 

Latinos student groups called the hunger strike at noon today and have planted themselves outside California Hall, which houses the offices of the university officials. 

Various student groups on campus have previously asked for the last three items on the list of demands on different occasions, but have so far met with no success. 

Arizona’s new get-tough immigration law has emboldened other state capitols to follow suit.  

Legislators in at least 10 states— Utah, Oklahoma, Colorado, Ohio, Missouri, Georgia, South Carolina, Mississippi, Texas, and Maryland— have called for laws that would mirror Arizona’s Senate Bill 1070, according to the Progressive States Network and reporting by New America Media.  

First out of the gate to actually introduce a bill was South Carolina.  

Along with 20 co-sponsors, Rep. Eric Bedingfield, a Republican, introduced a bill April 29 that, like Arizona’s, requires law enforcement officials to check individuals’ immigration status.  

Some of the language in the South Carolina bill, which was posted on the legislature’s website, is virtually identical to the most controversial portion of the Arizona measure signed into law by Gov. Jan Brewer on April 23.  

The South Carolina bill reads: “When reasonable suspicion exists that the person is an alien who is unlawfully present in the United States, a reasonable attempt must be made, when practicable, to determine the immigration status of the person.”  

Civil rights advocates, like the Rev. Al Sharpton, blasted the same phrasing in the Arizona law as opening the door to ethnic profiling of Latinos and anyone else appearing foreign-born. Kevin R. Johnson, dean of the University of California, Davis School of Law, agrees the language is “very open-ended” and that some of the civil rights concerns over the Arizona law are warranted. But, he argues, successful legal challenges will likely focus on the far more clear-cut case that such laws usurp the federal government’s constitutionally granted supremacy over immigration.  

Even so, state capitals, county seats and city halls insist on trying to legislate immigration controls.  

In 2007, for example, Oklahoma passed a hard-line immigration law that, while not as tough as Arizona’s, imposed a set of controls on employers and made it a felony to harbor, shelter or transport undocumented immigrants.  

This year, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit struck down a section of the Oklahoma law pertaining to penalties on employers. The court said the Oklahoma measure was pre-empted in that area by federal law.  

But that didn’t frighten Oklahoma legislators away from the immigration issue. They are now cobbling together proposals that would outdo even Arizona. Republican Rep. Randy Terrill has said a bill he’s authoring may go one step further and provide for the seizure and forfeiture of property of those caught in immigration violations. Latino communities in Oklahoma, who lived through panic and an exodus in the wake of the 2007 law, are bracing for a new crackdown, says Patricia Fennel, executive director of the Tulsa-based Latino Community Development Agency.  

“With the legislature we have now, if that [new] legislation was introduced tomorrow, I think it would pass easily,” says Fennel.  

The controversial Arizona law may be emboldening immigration hardliners.  

But as Oklahoma’s own experience shows, states’ efforts to curb illegal immigration—and criminalize it— pre-date Arizona’s new bill.  

But Arizona’s action seems to have spread the idea that state-level immigration laws can get tougher. Mississippi passed a bill in 2008 that made it a felony for an undocumented immigrant to solicit or accept work in the state. Now, Mississippi legislators are calling for the state to adopt Arizona’s tougher approach, according to Bill Chandler, executive director of the Mississippi Immigrant Rights Alliance. The handful of state legislators known for their frequent “ranting and raving” about illegal immigration “ramped it up since Arizona,” adds Chandler.  

In Missouri, a broad bill to crack down on illegal immigration was being considered in the legislature as Arizona debated and passed its law. The Missouri bill, the subject of hearings last week, would make it a felony to knowingly transport or harbor an undocumented immigrant. But now the bill’s sponsor, Republican Rep. Mark Parkinson, says he will go further and introduce legislation similar to Arizona’s next year.  

Utah is another state that has recently taken a hard tack on immigration. A Utah law, which went into effect last year, sought to prevent state employers from hiring undocumented immigrants and also made it illegal to harbor them. At the same time, undocumented immigrants are allowed in-state tuition in Utah schools, and the influential Mormon Church allows undocumented immigrants to be bishops.  

Now, Republican Rep. Stephen Sandstrom says he’s drafting a bill modeled on Arizona’s. "With Arizona making the first step in this direction, Utah needs to pass a similar law or we will see a huge influx of illegals,” he was quoted as saying in The Salt Lake Tribune.  

Despite the rash of calls for copycat legislation, it is likely an attitude of caution will prevail in many places, says Suman Raghunathan, who tracks immigration policy for the New York-based Progressive States Network, which works with progressive state legislators nationwide.  

In Texas, for example, some legislators have called for a local version of the Arizona law. But Gov. Rick Perry, a conservative Republican, has cautioned against doing that. So has the business community.  

States aren’t the only jurisdictions trying to craft their own immigration laws. Last year, Farmers Branch, a suburb of Dallas, Texas, passed an ordinance seeking to bar landlords from renting apartments to undocumented immigrants. That ordinance was struck down by the federal courts, as was a similar one passed a few years ago in Hazelton, Penn.  

However, states and localities will continue taking matters into their own hands until Congress enacts federal immigration reform. Congressional action seems at least possible this year after Senate Democrats’ release of an immigration reform blueprint last week.  

Immigrant advocates like to point out that both the backers and detractors of Arizona-style laws agree that the nation’s immigration system is broken. The question is when the U.S. Congress and White House will summon the resolve fix it.  

“The crisis in Arizona today only shows what happens when the federal government fails to do its job,” says Ali Noorani, executive director of the National Immigration Forum. 

A former letter carrier for the U.S. Postal Service has been accused of trying to kill his former supervisor by ramming the victim with a car over the weekend. 

Tian Yu Lu, a 62-year-old San Francisco man, has been charged with premeditated attempted murder and assault with a deadly weapon for allegedly ramming his car into his 53-year-old former boss in the 900 block of Pierce Street in Albany shortly after 6 a.m. on Saturday, according to Alameda County Assistant District Attorney Marty Brown. 

The victim had fired Lu for poor performance last October and he was attacked as he was walking to his car to drive to work, Albany police Sgt. Dave Bettencourt said.  

Lu and the victim, whose name isn't being released, both worked at a post office in San Francisco, according to Bettencourt. He said Lu had worked for the Postal Service for 15 years before he was fired.  

Bettencourt said Lu had been waiting outside the victim's home and when he saw the victim he accelerated his car, pinning the victim between his car and the victim's car.  

However, the victim was able to slip away and run to safety on the far side of his car, according to Bettencourt.  

Lu fled the scene but officers found him near Golden Gate Fields a short time later and arrested him, Bettencourt said.  

The former letter carrier was arrested on suspicion of driving under the influence of alcohol in addition to attempted murder and assault with a deadly weapon, but prosecutors chose not to charge him with driving under the influence. Brown said Lu could face life in prison if he's convicted of premeditated attempted murder.  

Bettencourt said the victim suffered a broken arm and cuts and bruises but was released from the hospital the same day as the incident. He is still recovering at home and hasn't returned to work yet, Bettencourt said.  

Lu, who is being held without bail at the Santa Rita Jail in Dublin, was arraigned earlier this week and is scheduled to return to Alameda County Superior Court on Friday to finalize his legal representation and possibly enter a plea. 

Jail records indicate that Lu also formerly worked for the San Francisco Unified School District. 

Albany police say that anyone who may have witnessed the collision or has information about the case should call their investigations division at (510) 528-5786.  

A group of about 25 University of California at Berkeley students entered the second day of a hunger strike today asking the university to publicly oppose Arizona's new immigration law. 

Students are asking the university's chancellor to make a public statement against the state's new law, SB 1070, and hope to eventually be able to pressure UC administrators into boycotting the state, said Alejandro Lara-Briseno, a senior at UC Berkeley and a participant in the hunger strike. 

Hunger strikers are also asking school administration to drop disciplinary action against students who occupied Wheeler Hall in December and revise the university's student conduct code. Additionally, they are also asking the university to re-hire janitors who were laid off because of budget cuts. 

Hunger strikers and supporters are holding their protest in front of the school's administration building.  

A year ago today, on the night of May 4, 2009 at about 11:30, neighbors reported hearing gunfire in the 1300 block of 67th Street. Berkeley police officers found Maurice Robertson, 18, of Berkeley, dead from gunshot wounds in the backyard of a home there. 

This was Berkeley’s only unsolved murder in 2009. 

According to a recent press release from the Berkeley Police Department, his family is still devastated by their loss. Police Information Officer Jamie Perkins quotes his mother, Charlene Adams, saying, “It would really hurt my heart if I have to live the rest of my life without knowing what happened to my son”. 

Tonight, Tuesday, May 4, from 7:30 p.m. to 8:30 p.m., the family will be holding a vigil in the rear yard of 1340 67th Street in memory of Maurice Robertson. 

BPD detectives want to speak with someone they consider “a person of interest” seen by witnesses near the crime scene before the shooting.  

Witnesses described him as a Black male, 16-19 years old, 5’8” to 5’10” in height, wearing an orange Northface-style windbreaker jacket. 

The City of Berkeley is offering a $15,000 reward and the Bay Area Crime Stoppers have offered an additional $2,000 reward, for information leading to the arrest and convictionof the suspect(s) responsible for Robertson’s murder. 

BPD Homicide Detectives urge anyone who has information regarding this case to come forward. Anyone with information can contact the BPD Homicide Detail at (510) 981-5741 or the BPD non-emergency line at (510) 981-5900. Callers can remain anonymous by calling the Bay Area Crime Stoppers Tip Line at 1-800-222-TIPS (8477). 

About 25 parents and other community members met at the Berkeley High School Library last Tuesday evening to present to the district board their ideas about what they are looking for in a high school principal.  

Superintendent Bill Huyett and Assistant Superintendent Lisa van Thillo outlined for those in attendance the selection process for choosing a principal. “High schools,” said Huyett, “are like little cities”: a principal must manage many systems and handle quite complex personnel and resource allocation issues.  

Huyett referred to a Rand study indicating that it is the principal of a school, along with highly qualified teachers and a coherent curriculum, who makes a school work well. Hence choosing an effective principal for Berkeley High is of crucial importance. Huyett said he appreciates community interest and input: “Good schools have engaged parents … parents push the school.” 

That input was amply forthcoming at the meeting. Here are some of the opinions voiced: 

There is at Berkeley High “competition for scarce resources. A strong principal would allocate resources equitably.” 

“Berkeley High is divided into small schools. There is strength in that, but we are really divided and quite parochial.” A principal needs to think about what is “good for the whole school.” We need “a genuine appreciation of diversity that is more than political.” 

A number of parents voiced their concern about the achievement gap at BHS between high-performing and underperforming students. Reducing this gap must be a priority for an incoming principal: “I don’t know why we have such a high gap. A principal must deal with diverse students in a diverse school district.” 

Several speakers said a new principal should pay more attention to safety issues at the school, and alluded to dangers their children have faced. One person said “I have found that school committees are cherry-picked. If you don’t agree, you are kicked out.”  

Another parent submitted that integrity and curiosity are key values that the school should foster. 

Huyett said that the deadline for new applications for the principal position has passed, and that there have been 45 applications. In May, the application process, involving perhaps a site visit to schools where applicants currently work, will proceed. Two panels will interview the applicants: a “technical” panel consisting of school staff, and a community panel consisting of representatives of community groups. Neil Smith will lead the technical panel, and Huyett will coordinate the community panel.  

In response to audience questions about how panelists will be chosen, Huyett said that “the Superintendent will look to see that we have diversity on our panels.” Lisa van Thillo will also be involved in this selection process. Some teachers have expressed a concern about teacher panelists being chosen in a fair way from the six small learning communities.  

Interviews of applicants by the panels will get underway this week. 

The thoughtful tenor of the meeting on Tuesday evening, in which a wide variety of views were voiced and considered, indicated a commitment to openness and dialogue. As Peggy Scott, parent representative to the school governing council, remarked: “Diversity is really about respecting everybody and appreciating their differences.” 

A defense attorney told jurors today that "it's been a long and demanding ride" for a man charged with murder for the stabbing death of University of California at Berkeley senior Christopher Wootton near campus two years ago today. 

In her closing argument in the trial of 22-year-old Andrew Hoeft-Edenfield, his attorney, Yolanda Huang, said she gets strength from him because of "what he's gone through and endured" since being arrested for the death of Wootton in the parking lot of a sorority house in the 2400 block of Warring Street at about 2:45 a.m. May 3, 2008. 

Pointing at Hoeft-Edenfield, Huang said he "maintains a faith that justice will be done" yet "sits there so powerless."  

Prosecutor Connie Campbell immediately objected to Huang's comments, prompting Alameda County Superior Court Judge Jeffrey Horner to summon both attorneys in the lengthy and contentious trial to his chambers for a five-minute discussion away from jurors and the spectators who packed his courtroom. 

When Huang resumed her closing argument, she said, "Mr. Hoeft-Edenfield is calm and composed and remains positive in the hopes of justice."  

Huang said Hoeft-Edenfield should be found not guilty of murder charges for Wootton's death because "there's no evidence on when and how it happened" and "there's no evidence on how the stabbing took place." 

But Campbell said, "The evidence is very clear that the defendant (Hoeft-Edenfield) killed Christopher Wootton in cold blood."  

Campbell said the stabbing was "a very cold-blooded killing and the evidence overwhelmingly supports a verdict of murder." 

Wootton, 21, who was from Bellflower in Southern California, was only weeks away from graduating with honors in nuclear engineering when he was killed. He planned to continue studying nuclear engineering in graduate school at UC Berkeley, according to a statement issued by Chancellor Robert Birgeneau after the stabbing. Campbell said Wootton was "a thoughtful, intelligent man with great leadership skills and discipline and had a bright future."  

Campbell alleged that Hoeft-Edenfield presented himself as "a thug" and had anger management problems that prevented him from walking away from a drunken shouting match that developed when Hoeft-Edenfield and a group of his friends encountered Wootton and a group of his friends on a street near campus.  

Huang told jurors in her opening statement on March 16 that Hoeft-Edenfield, who worked at Jamba Juice in Berkeley and attended Berkeley City College, "doesn't have a malicious bone in his body" and acted in self-defense after he was "outnumbered, surrounded, kicked and stomped" by Wootton and a large group of Wootton's friends. But Campbell said today that testimony by Hoeft-Edenfield's former teachers and others provided "overwhelming evidence that he's a violent, explosive person with anger management problems his whole life." 

Campbell said Hoeft-Edenfield's anger management issues were evident in his "unwillingness to walk away from a verbal argument and in his decision to reach into his pocket and pull out a knife" in the confrontation in which Wootton was fatally stabbed. 

"You can't bring a deadly weapon to a fistfight and claim it was self-defense," Campbell said. 

She said Hoeft-Edenfield "expressed his intent to kill" by threatening Wootton and his friends by asking them, "Who wants to be stabbed?" and "Who wants to fucking die?"  

Campbell said Hoeft-Edenfield's actions after the stabbing also refute Huang's contention that he acted in self-defense. 

The prosecutor said Hoeft-Edenfield threw his knife into some bushes, although it was recovered the next day, tried to wash his clothes immediately afterward and didn't call police to report that he had acted because he feared for his life.  

Jurors will begin deliberating Hoeft-Edenfield's fate late Tuesday after Huang and Campbell finish their closing arguments.

In the news today: Zoning changes for Panoramic Hill and Telegraph, fines for daycare centers proposed, new marijuana regulations, 155-unit apartment complex for South Shattuck, credit card fraud and a music club in financial trouble. 

Tuesday City Council meeting to include special session on 2011 budget 

The Berkeley City Council meeting Tuesday will begin with a special 5:30 p.m. workshop on the proposed fiscal year 2011 city budget given by City Manager Phil Kamlarz and Budget Manager Tracey Vesley . It can be viewed online. The regular 7 p.m. Council meeting agenda includes Panoramic Hill zoning amendments as well as proposed adjustments to the Telegraph Avenue zoning laws. 

Berkeley Mayor Tom Bates and Councilmembers Laurie Capitelli, Kriss Worthington and Gordon Wozniak will request the City Manager to analyze and work with relevant commissions on proposed modifications in Telegraph's current commercial zoning which would permit businesses to extend their business hours to 3 a.m., Sunday through Saturday by simply getting a zoning certificate. 

Other adjustments include implementing a six month trial project to change the yellow loading zone parking regulations in the Telegraph commercial zone between Bancroft and Dwight Way to mirror the rest of the city's yellow zones, which revert to regular parking after 6 p.m. 

The City Manager is expected to return to council by Oct. 12 with recommendations for council action. 

Berkeley May Fine Large Home Family Daycares  

The Berkeley City Council may also ask City Manager Phil Kamlarz Tuesday to review cases involving large, in-home family day care businesses whose owners have not obtained a Berkeley business license, not paid Berkeley business fees or don't have the appropriate use permit. 

After the City Manager's office finished the review, it would develop a 90-day amnesty program during which large family daycare providers who have not yet obtained business licenses would be given a chance to come forward and register their businesses without being subject to penalties. 

The city would also develop a payment plan for this group of daycare businesses, under which they would have to pay business fees due since 2007. 

According to a report from city staff, some providers may have to pay fees of up to $7000 to the city. A number of daycare owners have contacted the city saying that these exorbitant payments might force them out of business altogether. 

The staff report says that although the City Auditor has requested information from four large in-home family daycares, she has not yet received a response. 

Medical Marijuana Regulation Changes 

The Berkeley City Council will also vote on whether to allow all three of the city’s medical marijuana dispensaries to expand beyond retail space to grow cannabis and bake marijuana-laced cookies and brownies in residential and commercial properties. Both city staff and the Medical Cannabis Commission are putting forward their own set of recommendations which vary regarding the size and scope of the proposed operations. 

The council will also vote on whether to approve language for a ballot measure for Nov. 2010 to amend the Business License Tax Ordinance to tax certain medical cannabis uses. 

City Attorney Zach Cowan has suggested that one way to balance the city's current deficit is to increase the business tax on medical cannabis dispensaries from 1.12 percent to 1.8 percent, which is expected to bring in $330,000 in 2011.  

In comparison, the city imposes a 15 percent tax on firearm and ammunition dealers, a 15 percent tax on private rubbish haulers and a 10 percent tax on private sporting events. 

In the scenario that a medical cannabis dispensary attains non-profit status and becomes exempt from business tax, Cowan said it would be taxed on the basis of its square feet, just as large non-profits already are. 

Berkeley Approves $60 M Parker Place Development 

Developers Ali Kashani and Mark Rhoades of City Centric Investments have received the entitlements to their Parker Place project, the SF Business Times reported today. 

Developers of the mixed-use apartment project with 155units, a 188-spot parking garage and 1900 square feet of retail space at 2600 Shattuck Ave. promise to revitalize an otherwise underutilized part of the neighborhood, but like a lot of other building projects, this one has met with some criticism. 

Twenty percent of the rental units will be affordable housing which will help the developers get access to low income housing tax credits. 

Berkeley Police Warn of Credit Card Fraud 

The Berkeley Police Department is asking the community to watch out for credit card thefts which they say have escalated over the last few months. 

Although the police did not point toward specific cases, they said the problem was probably part of a larger operation and urged caution. 

Berkeley music venue in trouble 

The SF Chronicle reports text that the all volunteer underground music venue 924 Gilman St. is in trouble because of a high rent increase starting July 1 which may push it out of its home. 

The staff at 924 Gilman is reaching out to the community to raise the extra $31,000 required annually to cover the rent expenses, scheduling concerts, donation drives and there are plans to apply for non-profit status to qualify for special funds. 

[Editor's Note: This was received as a press release at 3 on Monday afternoon. A more complete article will follow. Berkeley Police Department Public Information Officer Jamie Perkins confirmed that the crime at Rabbi Lerner's home in the 900 block of Cragmont was reported at 11:40 today, Monday, and she said at about 6 p.m. that there were no suspects as yet.]

Berkeley police today confirmed that the attack on Rabbi Lerner's home late Sunday May 2nd or early morning Monday May 3rd was in fact a crime and was being investigated. 

The attackers used a powerful form of glue to attach posters to his door and around the property of his home attacking Lerner personally, and attacking liberals and progressives as being supporters of terrorism and "Islamo-fascism." They posted a printed bumper sticker saying "fight terror--support Israel" next to a carcature of Judge Goldstone whose UN report on Israel's human rights violations in its attack on Gaza last year has been denounced as anti-Semitic and pro-terror by right wingers in Israel and the U.S.. The caricature has Goldstone talking about his being kept from his grandson's bar mitzvah, and the caricature of Rabbi Lerner responds by saying "any enemy of Israel is a friend of mine." This attack and vandalism follows on a week filled with Lerner and Tikkun staff receiving hate mail, prompted apparently by Tikkun's announcement that in case the South African Zionists had succeeded in preventing Judge Goldstone from attending his grandson's bar mitzvah, as they threatened several weeks ago, that Rabbi Lerner would gladly hold the bar mitzvah in the SF Bay Area instead, and following Tikkun's announcement that in light of Goldstone's courageous willingness to stand up for human rights in Israel (his report called on the Israeli government to do its own independent, pulbic and credibly objective investigation, punish those responsible for the crimes or show that they didn't happen, and thereby show that these actions were not government policy but the mistakes or evil choices by people in the IDF who were acting as rogue elements and not as a manifestation of the people of Israel) that Tikkun will award our prestigious Tikkun Award to Judge Goldstone in 2011 at the event celebrating our 25th anniversary! This story, which was prominent in Ha'aretz and many other Jewish magazines and websites, has intensified anger against Lerner and Tikkun among those who seek to perpetuate the Occupation, and great support among those who realize that the Occupation is really hurtful both to Israel and to the Jewish people world-wide. 

In the 24 years of Tikkun's operation, we have received many death threats and vicious hate mail, including phone calls to our office announcing that "Rabbi Lerner is dead" and others saying "We will kill all of you." This particular attack has two worrisome elements not previously there: 1. They attack Rabbi Lerner's home. As law enforcement people told us, this is a way of conveying the messaget to Lerner: "We know where you live, we know your house is vulnerable, so don't ignore our threats." 2. By linking Lerner to alleged terrorism, they provide for themselves and other extremists a "right-wing justification" to use violence against Lerner, even though Lerner has been a prominent advocate of non-violence. He regularly critiques Palestinian acts of violence when they occur, including the shelling of Israeli towns by Hamas, just as he critiques the violence of the Israeli occupation, and as he critiques the US war in Iraq and Afghanistan, the occupation of Chechny by Russia, the occupation of Tibet by China, the human rights violations agaisnt their own people by the rulers of Iran, the acts of violence of those resisting the US occupation of Iraq and Afghanistan, the violence against women and homosexuals in many Arab and African countries (and in the US and Israel as well), the genocide in Darfur, the violence against Jews in some parts of Europe, and the list goes on. 

Needless to say, this latest attack, on Lerner's home, has caused great concern to his family. 

In a previous email about the attack on Rabbi Lerner's house, the dates were incorrectly stated as June 2 and July 3rd, making it seem as though it had been in the distant past or near future. The emotional upset caused by this incident has thrown us for a loop, so sorry about that mistake. The actual date of the attack on Lerner's home was last night (May 2nd or early morning May 3rd) and discovered this morning, May 3rd. 

The police say that this is not a "hate crime" because the attackers were not attacking Rabbi Lerner for his religion, but for his politics. That is scant comfort for those of us who continue to beleve that America and Israel are best served by the voices willing to publicly share critique, though incidents like this are of course meant to scare people into silence. Tikkun will not be silenced.  

What can you do? Let people know that this kind of thing is happening in the Jewish world to people who critique Israeli policies. 

--Tikkun Magazine 

To reach Rabbi Lerner directly: RabbiLerner@Tikkun.org or call the Tikkun office at 510 644 1200.

Last night the Berkeley City Council unanimously approved the “Reduced Impact Alternative” BRT that is similar to “Rapid Bus Plus” as the “Locally Preferred Alternative.” It rejected the “Build Alternative” which would have removed traffic lanes and placed boarding stations in the middle of the street even though AC Transit sent a letter saying, more or less, that it was obliged to choose that alternative. This meeting with Bus Rapid Transit the only agenda item ended after 11:00 pm. Sixty-six members of the public were against the “Build Alternative,” twenty-three in favor and five asked all alternatives to be studied. Here are the alternatives.  

Since the draft EIR/EIS only studied the No-Build and the Full-Build, there was discussion between the AC Transit representative, Cory LaVigne, and the city’s attorney about whether a different alternative could now be studied. LaVigne said since it was not in the draft, it could not be studied in the final. It would have to be a special study, perhaps a supplemental EIR. So after the deed is done, AC Transit comes to the cities to ask them for their preferred alternative. But as the attorney assured the city council, the city itself, not AC Transit, determines changes to their streets. 

The council’s decision does not affect AC Transit’s ability to receive federal Small-Start funds because dedicated lanes are not one of the required criteria for BRT. But AC Transit’s fiscal condition may make them ineligible. See BRT Small Starts Fact Sheet.  

Councilmembers discussed the “environmental justice” of removing local service because it would impact the elderly and disabled. But retaining local service did not seem to be included in the “Reduced Impact Alternative.” It was part of the “Rapid Bus Plus” alternative. Also included in that alternative was splitting the line in downtown Oakland to avoid the bunching that occurs on very long lines like the #51. 

Some council members wanted to extend the BRT down University Ave. to Amtrak, which would mean it would connect to the San Pablo Rapid Bus, but AC Transit claimed it could not be studied now. 

Mayor Bates asked how Berkeley would connect to Oakland if they have dedicated lanes. The short answer was “awkwardly.” But Temescal residents are not likely to accept dedicated lanes:See this week’s article in the East Bay Express. 

Joyce Roy is a semi-retired architect and long-time Oakland transit activist. Partisan Position writers are not guaranteed to be impartial, although they are knowledgeable and hope to provide accurate factual information.  

In the news today: 

Wareham Nixes Cannabis Clinic's Plans to Move into Chocolate Factory 

Money solves everything, or at least in the case of Wareham Development, it helped prevent what the company considered a big thorn from moving into prime retail space located in West Berkeley. 

According to the Berkeley Voice Wareham recently bought the former Scharffen Berger Chocolate building at 914 Heinz St.--space the Berkeley Patients Group had earmarked for relocating their cannabis dispensary. 

The Berkeley Patients Group faced opposition from both Wareham, who contended that a cannabis dispensary would bring down real estate value and alienate prospective buyers, and Ecole Bilingue, a French American school located next to the candy factory. 

Ecole Bilingue argued that there was a loophole in city law which prohibited marijuana clinics from opening up 1,000 feet of public schools, but didn't mention anything about private schools. 

Both Wareham and Ecole Bilingue had threatened to sue if Berkeley Patients Group went ahead with their plans. 

More Pink Slips for BUSD Classified Employees 

The Berkeley Unified School District is facing a tough time once again, and on Wednesday the Berkeley Board of Education approved pink slips for 30 classified employees. 

The layoffs are expected to save about $900,000, a third of the district's projected shortfall, which has sent the district scrambling to find ways to stay afloat, including considering two furlough days in the new school year. 

School districts across California are feeling the pain of the state's budget crisis, and many schools have already increased class sizes and some are even teaching their students in the dark to save on energy bills. 

UC Berkeley Scientists Sequence Frog Genome 

The UC Berkeley News Center reported Thursday that a team of scientists led by the Department of Energy's Joint Genome Institute (JGI) and the university will publish the first genome sequence of an amphibian, the African clawed frog Xenopus tropicalis. 

The lead researchers hope that the discovery will fill a major gap among vertebrates sequenced until now, and can now go on to design gene chips to look at changes in gene expression across the whole genome. 

Hip Hop in People's Park Saturday 

Get ready for a free hip hop concert in People's Park Saturday, May 1, noon to 5 p.m., presented by the UC Berkeley Students for Hip Hop. 

Featuring: The Blue Scholars, Invincible, Macklemore & Ryan Lewis, Otayo Dubb, Raw G and  

Kurse; Hosted by Do D.A.T. More information.  

"Driving while Black." "Walking while Black." These are phrases in the contemporary vernacular for racial profiling, which is defined as the inclusion of racial or ethnic characteristics in determining whether a person is considered likely to commit a particular type of crime or an illegal act or to behave in a "predictable" manner. Arizona's new immigration law will now target those "walking or driving while Brown."  

The Fourth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution guarantees the right to be safe from unreasonable search and seizure without probable cause. Since the majority of people of all races are law-abiding citizens, merely being of a race, which a police officer believes to be more likely to commit a crime than another, is not probable cause. In addition, the Fourteenth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution requires that all citizens be treated equally under the law. It follows then that it is unconstitutional for a representative of the government to make decisions based on race. 

Interestingly, recent polls show that 71 percent of African-Americans, long-time victims of racial profiling, support the ethnic profiling of people who look to be of middle-eastern descent as do 66 percent of whites. 

Many states, including California, specifically prohibit racial profiling of both motorists and pedestrians and prohibit profiling based on religion or religious appearance. Arizona has no such prohibitions. 

It is not clear how the U.S. Supreme Court views racial profiling. Two recent cases suggest that the Supreme Court might disregard state and municipal efforts to circumscribe arbitrary police behavior motivated by racial profiling. In the 1996 case of Whren v. United States, Justice Antonin Scalia, writing for a unanimous court, found no impropriety, Constitutional or otherwise, when Washington, D.C. plain clothes officers in an unmarked car stopped two Black men for minor traffic violations in order to search their car for drugs. D.C. regulations specifically prohibit police officers from making traffic stops unless the driver was somehow threatening public safety. Remarkably, in upholding the validity of the pretext stop, Justice Scalia found the plain clothes officers had met the reasonable suspicion standard. 

In the 2008 case of Virginia v. Moore, Justice Scalia again writing for a unanimous court, saw no violation of Moore's Fourth Amendment rights against unreasonable search and seizure. The police officers in this case received a call that a man known as "Chubs" was driving without a license. What was not mentioned in the Court's opinion was that the "Chubs" mentioned in the radio transmission was not Moore, but a man named Christopher Delbridge. This was noted by the Virginia Supreme Court in reversing the lower court decision. The police did not search Moore at the scene. Rather, they took him to his hotel room where they searched him and found crack cocaine. Moore is African-American living in Portsmouth, Virginia, where more than 50 percent of the population is Black. The Supreme Court refused to address the issue of racial profiling. 

Finally, a third case has raised concern among civil rights advocates. In the 2008 case of Cerqueira v. American Airlines, Inc., the Supreme Court declined, without explanation, to hear the case of a man who was kicked off an American Airlines jetliner in Boston because a flight attendant thought he looked like a Middle Eastern terrorist. John Cerqueira is an American citizen of Portuguese heritage who was trying to fly home to Fort Lauderdale. Instead, he was escorted off the jetliner and questioned by police for two hours because American Airlines personnel thought his dark hair and olive complexion made him look Middle Eastern. Cerqueira sued American Airlines for discrimination and won. A federal court of appeals court reversed the lower court decision. It seems that airline safety trumped Cerqueira's individual rights. Cerqueira is not alone in his plight. From 2001 to 2008, the Department of Transportation had received 953 complaints of discrimination against U.S. airlines. 

As an aside, Section 412 of the Patriot Act permits the U.S. attorney general to detain aliens he certifies as threats to national security for up to seven days without bringing charges. The standard for detention is the familiar reasonable suspicion standard enunciated by the Supreme Court in Terry  

What about Arizona's immigration law? The law makes it a state crime to be in the state illegally. The law also requires immigrants to carry their alien registration documents at all times and requires police to question people if there is reason to suspect they're in the U.S. illegally. It also targets those who hire illegal immigrant day laborers or knowingly transport them.  

The law will probably be challenged on two legal theories: (1) that Arizona cannot enact its own scheme to regulate immigration; and (2) the law essentially codifies racial profiling. Article 1, Section 8 of the U.S. Constitution gives Congress the power "to establish an uniform rule of naturalization." And in the 1976 case of Hampton v. Mow Sun Wong, the Supreme Court ruled that the Congressional power to regulate naturalization includes the power to regulate immigration because it does not make sense to allow Congress to pass laws on how an immigrant becomes a citizen if Congress cannot determine how that immigrant can come into this country in the first place. Therefore, the argument goes, only the U.S. has plenary authority over immigration because it is a national policy that affects relations with other nations such as Mexico, whose government has denounced the Arizona law.  

The Arizona law gives law enforcement authorities carte blanche to make enforcement decisions based on race and ethnicity or racial profiling. The law will likely be challenged on that basis as well. 

There is precedent for striking down the Arizona law. For example, a federal district court struck down California's Proposition 187, a 1994 initiative that sought to deny health and welfare benefits and public schooling to the undocumented. Federal district courts in Pennsylvania and Texas have issued similar rulings overturning local ordinances that prohibited undocumented immigrants from renting homes or apartments. However, none of these cases has been affirmed by a federal court of appeals and thus, have not reached the U.S. Supreme Court.  

Unlike these other cases, Arizona targets illegal immigrants themselves, not just their benefits and it imposes criminal penalties for conduct - being in the state illegally - that is not a federal crime but is only grounds for deportation. Arguably Arizona is regulating immigration, an exclusive right of the federal government and therefore, is unconstitutional.  

Arizona has about 1.7 million residents of Hispanic or Latino origin, or about 30 percent of the population. This means that potentially 1.7 million Arizonans are likely targets for walking or driving while Brown. 

Let the lawsuits begin. 

Ralph Stone is a San Francisco attorney.  

A state appeals court in San Francisco on Monday upheld a lower court decision that the environmental report for Chevron's Richmond refinery expansion project is inadequate under state environmental laws.  

Last June, a Contra Costa County Superior Court judge ruled that the refinery's environmental impact report on the project was invalid because it failed to disclose whether the project would enable the refinery to process heavier crude oil.  

The ruling was followed by an injunction ordering the refinery to stop construction on the project, and Chevron began laying off workers.  

Chevron appealed the superior court ruling to the state Court of Appeal, but the appellate court upheld the lower court's decision Monday.  

"Chevron is disappointed with the Court of Appeal's ruling," Chevron spokesman Brent Tippen said today. "We feel both the evidence and the law amply supported the adequacy of the EIR prepared by the city of Richmond for the renewal project."  

The Richmond City Council narrowly approved the company's Energy and Hydrogen Renewal Project in 2008 and the company broke ground in 2009.  

Soon after the project was approved, however, a group of community groups represented by the nonprofit law firm Earthjustice sued the city, claiming the environmental impact report did not adhere to rules of the California Environmental Quality Act.  

Refinery officials claimed the project was an upgrade that would increase the refinery's flexibility to process a wider variety of crude oil and improve the plant's energy efficiency and reliability. They also said the project would reduce overall emissions at the plant and that the environmental review was sufficient.  

The environmental groups Communities for a Better Environment, the West County Toxics Coalition and Asian Pacific Environmental Network, however, claimed that the upgrade was actually an expansion that would enable the refinery to process heavier crude oil, resulting in increased pollution in nearby communities and a higher risk of an explosion at the plant.  

Tippen said today that the company believes that the project was properly analyzed and permitted.  

"We are now reviewing the court's decision and will determine what is next to be done," Tippen said.  

Earthjustice attorney Will Rostov said, "The court agrees that the people of Richmond have a right to know just how dirty the crude oil processed in this refinery will be."  

"The court pointed out the legal deficiencies in Chevron's refinery expansion plan and tells Chevron the simple steps it needs to expand their refinery in a legal way that won't harm neighbors," he said.  

"Asthma rates in Richmond are already twice the national average, said Richmond resident Kay Wallis, a health educator with the Division of Pulmonary and Critical Care Medicine at University of California, San Francisco. "For decades, Richmond families have paid a steep price for living near Chevron's refinery."  

In addition to describing the grade of crude oil the project will allow the refinery to process, the court is also requiring Chevron to revise its environmental report to include specific and proven mitigation efforts it will take for any increase in greenhouse gas emissions before it can proceed with the project.

In the news since the last issue: 

UC Berkeley Student Senate Fails to Overturn Israel Divestment Bill Veto 

The UC Berkeley student senate Wednesday failed to override the veto on a bill urging the university to divest from two American companies profiting by making weapons for the Israeli Army. 

Senators debated the issue until the early hours of Thursday morning, and at about 4 a.m. the student senate voted 13 to 5 to bypass the veto, one vote short of the required margin. 

Arizona Deportation Bill Protest at UC Berkeley 

Student organizers at UC Berkeley announced a mass deportation protest at Sproul Plaza on the Berkeley campus Thursday against the recent passage of SB 1070 in Arizona. The bill aims to identify, prosecute and deport illegal immigrants and is being called one of the toughest—if not the toughest—illegal immigration bills in the country. 

A press release sent out by the rally's organizers, including Spanish-language students on campus, described the bill as “promoting racial profiling in Arizona, and creating a state of terror against immigrants and non-immigrants alike.” 

“[The bill] has made it necessary for campus community groups to act,” the press release says. The mass deportation action [will show our opposition to unjust and racist laws everywhere in this nation.” 

Over 500 students were expected to participate in what the press release described as “a dramatic representation” of an I.C.E. raid. 

“The main objective of this action is to illustrate the moral implications that this bill will generate not only in Arizona, but all over the United States,” a statement from the organizers said. “Although this law is targeted to the undocumented community, this issue affects everyone. It is an attack on our civil liberties, and a giant step backwards from a progressive society. SB 1070 is a seed for hate and predjudice, it dehumanizes communities and terrorizes families in Arizona and across the nation.” 

AC Transit Board Considers Declaring Fiscal Emergency 

AC Transit announced Wednesday that it might be facing a possible “state of emergency.” which could force its board of directors to declare fiscal crisis. 

Burdened with increasing costs and dwindling financial resources, the board at its Wednesday meeting called for a public hearing May 26, 2010 to discuss the possibility of a “fiscal emergency,” which would allow the district to make ongoing adjustments in service and operations to counter a massive financial crunch. 

AC Transit has recently seen a steady decline in traditional sources of funding, along with local sales and property taxes due to a weak local economy, according to a statement from the transit agency. 

The district is estimated to have an operating deficit of more than $56 million by the end of the fiscal year 2011.  

If the board declares a fiscal emergency, then it will be the second consecutive year the district has been forced to do so. 

Berkeley Reports a Drop in Youth Tobacco Sales 

The City of Berkeley reported Thursday that there has been a big drop in tobacco sales to young people in the city. 

Youth Spirit Works Artwork Relaunches South Berkeley Business District 

This Saturday, Youth Spirit Works Artwork will unveil “Visions of the Soul,” an art window banner exhibit for vacant storefronts to mark the launch of the Adeline Street Merchants Association, comprised of South Berkeley businesses and non-profit organizations. 

The event will take place May 1, noon to 1:30 p.m. at 3308 Adeline St. 

UC Berkeley Student Senate Fails to Overturn Israel Divestment Bill Veto 

The UC Berkeley student senate Wednesday failed to override the veto on a bill urging the university to divest from two American companies profiting by making weapons for the Israeli Army. 

Senators debated the issue until the early hours of Thursday morning, and at about 4 a.m. the student senate voted 13 to 5 to bypass the veto, one vote short of the required margin. 

in the city. 

Cabbie Arrested for Sex Assaults  

An Oakland cab driver was arrested by the Berkeley Police Department Tuesday for sexually assaulting women passengers in his car in January 2008 and April 2010. 

According to his victims, 29-year-old Ali Al Obadi of Oakland asked them to sit with him in the front seat, following which he proceeded to forcibly hold their hands and grope their breasts. 

City Council Turns Down Appeal on Mitch Kapor's Home 

The Berkeley City Council turned down an appeal on software mogul Mitch Kapor's house on Rose Street at Tuesday's City Council meeting, upholding the Zoning Adjustments Board's unanimous approval of the project. 

The 10,000 square foot house with a 10-car garage project made the Home & Garden section of the New York Times last month, with its opponents arguing that the proposed building was too big to be called green. 

The proposed project will demolish an existing two-story 2,477-square-foot residence with three detached garages. 

The Kapors told the zoning board that they had decided to move from San Francisco to Berkeley to be near the UC Berkeley campus, where Mitch Kapor is an adjunct professor at the School of Information and his wife runs the IDEAL Scholars Fund serving minority students. 

More accounts of the meeting can be found in the Daily Cal and the Bay Area News Group papers.  

The full meeting can be watched on the City of Berkeley's web site. 

Three Firms to Submit Proposals for New BAM/PFA Design  

The Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive picked three architecture firms from a list of 10 to design the new museum and film archive at the site of the former UC printing plant at 2120 Oxford St. 

The three firms chosen are Ann Beha Architects of Boston, Diller Scofidio + Renfro of New York and Tod Williams Billie Tsien Architects of New York, the architectural firm for UC Berkeley’s C.V. Starr East Asian Library.  

BAM/PFA's Board of Trustees is expected to chose the finalist from among the three in June.  

The museum is scheduled for opening in 2014. 

UC Task Force Debates Sports Funding  

The $13.7 million cost of UC Berkeley athletics was hotly discussed at a campus forum.  

Becky O'Malley contributed to this article. 

In a late night vote on Thursday, the Berkeley City Council voted to support hybrid alternatives to AC Transit's Bus Rapid Transit proposal which eliminate dedicated bus lanes and bus boarding stations in the center of the street. According to AC Transit spokesperson Cory LaVigne this plan can’t be considered as part of the environmental impact study currently underway, making it effectively a "no build" alternative at this point.  

But AC transit staff who attended the meeting told councilmembers that the alternative proposals, including the Reduced Impact Alternative advanced by Mayor Bates and Councilmembers Capitelli and Maio and the "Rapid Bus Plus" scheme hatched by a coalition of Berkeleyans including Michael Katz, Craig Becker and Vincent Casalaina, could not be included in the final environmental impact study since they had not been part of the draft study. The AC planners said that a parallel study of these alternatives could be done.  

Councilmember Darryl Moore made a substitute motion to endorse studying the "full build", but it was rejected by a 4-2-2 vote. 

Comments from many members of the public and by the council extended the meeting past 11 p.m.  

The rumored blitz from construction union representatives didn't materialize.  

Many of the speakers in favor of the full build alternative were students who wanted faster trips, while many opponents mentioned impacts on businesses and street vendors on Telegraph as well as hardships to senior and disabled users if local stops were eliminated as AC Transit's plan proposed. 

The usual catch-phrase for environmental responsibility is "Reduce, Reuse, Recycle." However, on Earth Day, in a small computer lab in University Village, Albany, a local group added "Repair" to the list. Toolbox open, my daughter grinned as she unscrewed the base of our long-broken vacuum cleaner. In a corner, two of my friends leaned over the disassembled guts of a malfunctioning laptop. Broken cameras, microwaves, and electronics filled the tables near their hopeful owners as tools were passed around and volunteers guided each project and offered advice. 

The Fixit Clinic, a bi-monthly event organized and run by technologist Peter Mui, was founded in 2009 to help families gain the skills and confidence to fix things. Here, Peter won't just solve things for you. Instead, he shows participants how to evaluate problems, gather information online, and work logically to identify possible solutions. Any broken item small enough to carry is allowed, and parents are encouraged to bring their children. When I was young, I would sit with my father in our basement shop and help him fix things - toasters, clocks, whatever was broken. When it was obvious that our old phone was beyond repair, he let us kids take it apart. You really can't buy a better toy -- in the end we had it all in pieces, each of us claiming ownership of a different part. I still remember how the rubber button pad felt on my fingers, and how we hot-glued the circuit board to a #2 pencil to make an "electric pencil" gag gift.  

Things are different now; it often just seems easier to throw old things away rather than figure out what is wrong with them or try to understand how they work. However, at the Earth Day Fixit Clinic, the final tally of landfill-rescued items included: a vacuum, two cameras, two microwaves, a CD player, a pair of headphones, and a hair dryer. With luck, those who attended will be more likely to try to fix things in their own at home the next time something breaks. And if the grins I saw at the clinic were any indication, they'll have fun doing it too. 

In the news today: 

Tuesday City Council meeting to include special session on 2011 budget 

The Berkeley City Council meeting Tuesday will begin with a special 5:30 p.m. workshop on the proposed fiscal year 2011 city budget given by City Manager Phil Kamlarz and Budget Manager Tracey Vesley . It can be viewed online. The regular 7 p.m. Council meeting agenda includes Panoramic Hill zoning amendments as well as proposed adjustments to the Telegraph Avenue zoning laws. 

Berkeley Mayor Tom Bates and Councilmembers Laurie Capitelli, Kriss Worthington and Gordon Wozniak will request the City Manager to analyze and work with relevant commissions on proposed modifications in Telegraph's current commercial zoning which would permit businesses to extend their business hours to 3 a.m., Sunday through Saturday by simply getting a zoning certificate. 

Other adjustments include implementing a six month trial project to change the yellow loading zone parking regulations in the Telegraph commercial zone between Bancroft and Dwight Way to mirror the rest of the city's yellow zones, which revert to regular parking after 6 p.m. 

The City Manager is expected to return to council by Oct. 12 with recommendations for council action. 

Berkeley May Fine Large Home Family Daycares  

The Berkeley City Council may also ask City Manager Phil Kamlarz Tuesday to review cases involving large, in-home family day care businesses whose owners have not obtained a Berkeley business license, not paid Berkeley business fees or don't have the appropriate use permit. 

After the City Manager's office finished the review, it would develop a 90-day amnesty program during which large family daycare providers who have not yet obtained business licenses would be given a chance to come forward and register their businesses without being subject to penalties. 

The city would also develop a payment plan for this group of daycare businesses, under which they would have to pay business fees due since 2007. 

According to a report from city staff, some providers may have to pay fees of up to $7000 to the city. A number of daycare owners have contacted the city saying that these exorbitant payments might force them out of business altogether. 

The staff report says that although the City Auditor has requested information from four large in-home family daycares, she has not yet received a response. 

Medical Marijuana Regulation Changes 

The Berkeley City Council will also vote on whether to allow all three of the city’s medical marijuana dispensaries to expand beyond retail space to grow cannabis and bake marijuana-laced cookies and brownies in residential and commercial properties. Both city staff and the Medical Cannabis Commission are putting forward their own set of recommendations which vary regarding the size and scope of the proposed operations. 

The council will also vote on whether to approve language for a ballot measure for Nov. 2010 to amend the Business License Tax Ordinance to tax certain medical cannabis uses. 

City Attorney Zach Cowan has suggested that one way to balance the city's current deficit is to increase the business tax on medical cannabis dispensaries from 1.12 percent to 1.8 percent, which is expected to bring in $330,000 in 2011.  

In comparison, the city imposes a 15 percent tax on firearm and ammunition dealers, a 15 percent tax on private rubbish haulers and a 10 percent tax on private sporting events. 

In the scenario that a medical cannabis dispensary attains non-profit status and becomes exempt from business tax, Cowan said it would be taxed on the basis of its square feet, just as large non-profits already are. 

Berkeley Approves $60 M Parker Place Development 

Developers Ali Kashani and Mark Rhoades of City Centric Investments have received the entitlements to their Parker Place project, the SF Business Times reported today. 

Developers of the mixed-use apartment project with 155units, a 188-spot parking garage and 1900 square feet of retail space at 2600 Shattuck Ave. promise to revitalize an otherwise underutilized part of the neighborhood, but like a lot of other building projects, this one has met with some criticism. 

Twenty percent of the rental units will be affordable housing which will help the developers get access to low income housing tax credits. 

Berkeley Police Warn of Credit Card Fraud 

The Berkeley Police Department is asking the community to watch out for credit card thefts which they say have escalated over the last few months. 

Although the police did not point toward specific cases, they said the problem was probably part of a larger operation and urged caution. 

Berkeley music venue in trouble 

The SF Chronicle reports text that the all volunteer underground music venue 924 Gilman St. is in trouble because of a high rent increase starting July 1 which may push it out of its home. 

The staff at 924 Gilman is reaching out to the community to raise the extra $31,000 required annually to cover the rent expenses, scheduling concerts, donation drives and there are plans to apply for non-profit status to qualify for special funds. 

The email from the Tikkun organization which the Planet received yesterday with the news that vandals had pasted up threatening messages at the home of founder Rabbi Michael Lerner said this: “The police say that this is not a "hate crime" because the attackers were not attacking Rabbi Lerner for his religion, but for his politics.” With all due respect, the police have it exactly backwards. It’s his religion, not just his politics, that infuriates the crazies. 

What the good people at Tikkun have been trying to do is to persuade religious people of all denominations to live up to their religious aspirations. This, of course, is asking for trouble.  

Peter Maurin, the original ideologue of the radical Catholic Worker movement (which is still alive and well and living in Berkeley) spoke of “blowing the dynamite of the Church.” All religions, especially but not exclusively the prophetic ones which sprang from the deserts of the Middle East, have at their core revolutionary injunctions to pursue virtue by living in dramatically counter-intuitive ways.  

Sell all our possessions and give the proceeds to the poor? Live peaceably with one another? You’ve got to be kidding! 

Lerner and his colleagues at Tikkun are attempting to document and strengthen the best aspects of the religious impulse with what they call the Network of Spiritual Progressives. The magazine (both print and online) has contributions from all kinds of people from all sorts of backgrounds.  

From its statement of core principles: “Tikkun Magazine was started as ‘the liberal and progressives alternative to the voices of Jewish conservatism and the neo-cons’ but it has become much more—a voice for a spiritual politics of meaning, and while it maintains its strong position as the most widely read and respected explicitly progressive Jewish magazine in the world, it also is a place where you can read some of the most creative Catholic, Protestant, Muslim, Hindu and Buddhist spiritual progressives as we together think out how to apply a spiritual progressive consciousness to the realities of the contemporary 21st century world.” The common thread is the idea that “people want their lives to have some higher meaning and purpose than simply accumulating money, power, sexual gratification and fame-they want their lives to be connected to something about which they can feel that it has transcendent value.”  

But Tikkun doesn’t duck controversy in the name of some amorphous view of spirituality. A provocative sample, an article in the May-June issue: Are Israeli Policies Entrenching Anti-Semitism Worldwide? It’s a really excellent exploration of what the writer thinks has gone wrong in his beloved country, and the consequences. 

In the last few months an explosion of shocking incidents and revelations has prompted people from all religious backgrounds to question the traditions in which they grew up. A Catholic friend, an academic by training, is working on a serious letter to the Pope explaining exactly what he must do to extricate the church from the sexual scandals of the last 20 years—good luck. Many Jews around the world and even in Berkeley have become critical of events in Israel/Palestine, saying that religion is being used as the excuse for actions which they believe are contrary to their traditional moral values. In this issue we have a commentary from a local resident raised in the Islamic tradition speculating about why the peaceful and intellectual community of his childhood has been displaced by militancy and violence. 

The problem is that religion is a two-edged sword. For every Dorothy Day there’s a Father Coughlin, for every Richard Goldstone a Benjamin Netanyahu, for every Desmond Tutu a Jerry Falwell. Moral certainty too often translates into intolerance of differing concepts of morality or of those who practice a different religion.  

Seeing this, many of us are inclined to dump the whole thing: baby, bathwater and all. Many if not most of us around here are at least post-religious if not anti-religious. And yet more often than not it’s the still-religious who keep speaking up when needed for the homeless and the undocumented in our midst. Father Bill O’Donnell still lives in the memory of everyone whose cause he championed. If it wasn’t for the U-Us (Unitarian-Universalists) and their endless forums many serious problems would never be noticed, let alone corrected.  

And even the self-described non-religious citizens among us covertly adhere to the best principles of their birth religions. Many proprietors of small local groceries who were raised as Muslims sell the forbidden beer and wine out the front door, but they feed hungry poor folks out the back door consistent with their tradition. Proudly secular Jews still insist on trying to achieve justice in the world in the spirit of Tikkun olam, a Hebrew phrase that means "repairing the world" which is the inspiration for the magazine title. 

So it’s a mistake to say that the misguided idiots who vandalized Rabbi Lerner’s home didn’t commit a hate crime, where a hate crime (admittedly a slippery concept) is defined as one with motivation prompted by religious prejudice among other categories. It’s exactly Michael Lerner’s dogged insistence that religion should mean what it says that infuriates a few wicked people who like to wrap themselves in the cloak of religion to disguise their bad behavior. This vicious intolerance, this kind of hate, should have no place in Berkeley. 

The question of how to provide a sustainable information source for a small city in a metropolitan area is ongoing around here. It’s a subset of what now constitutes news, since even on a national level the main “news” outlets are increasingly aggregators (an insider word meaning collectors) of news stories created in other media. The ratio of “new news” to repeats on sites like the Huffington Post is small. 

In Berkeley, in addition to the Planet, there are at least three print papers with online adjuncts and at least one ambitious blog which attempt to deliver the news you need to know. For all of them, soft news, lifestyle copy about home and hearth and fancy food is the easiest to acquire, often without much compensation to the writer, and it fills up a lot of space—which online is virtually infinite.  

Every publication these days is deluged with electronic press releases. It’s been the longstanding habit of newspapers everywhere to simply re-write these, possibly making one or two phone calls, and re-labelling the product “news”, as if it were the product of a stellar staff of trained newhounds.  

Many of these press releases are well written and not misleading, and economy of effort suggests that they should just be passed on intact to the reading public. We’ve been experimenting with this around here, putting online verbatim copies, clearly labeled “press release” for truth in packaging. The best candidates for this treatment are releases from artists, arts organizations, government agencies and advocacy groups. Press offices at universities have for many years produced excellent articles about research topics, particularly in the sciences, and there’s no good reason not to offer them honestly and directly to the reader without re-writing.  

But what about real news? In fact, what is real news? Crime and accident stories would seem to count as real news, yet those also are often re-writes of agency press releases. Realistically, with Public Information Officers in police departments firmly in control, it’s almost impossible for reporters at short-staffed publications—almost all of them these days—to get much more information than these officers are willing to divulge. Again, it seems more honest simply to link to the press releases, and only to run a story if a reporter can make contact with someone not mentioned in the press release. 

Which leaves events, for example city council meetings. Here things happen in real time: plans presented, votes taken. It’s been customary for local news reporters to attend such meetings and in addition to reporting what’s going on up on the dais, to chat with proponents and exponents in the halls about agenda items. But with the advent of streaming video it’s possible to report off-site, and also possible for the citizen with an avid interest in the proceedings to watch them at home either in progress or the next day.  

This week’s Berkeley City Council meeting provides an excellent case in point. It featured only one agenda item where there was any suspense about the outcome, though an item providing some information about how the city staff wants to use housing funds was interesting to watch.  

At least three publications or blogs provided information about Who was there and What happened. This week the Planet launched a new feature, compact summaries of stories and links to press releases or full accounts in other media, so our online readers were able to quickly get the Who and the What about the zoning appeal of a permit for a massive house proposed for 2707 Rose Street.  

Even though I watched the whole affair online, we elected not to duplicate the adequate factual accounts in other media. Taken together, the three versions of the story provided some nice quotes, pictures and details about what happened, and the blog devoted a lot of wordspace to reaction comments, some of which were intelligent. 

But what was lacking in the sum total was the Why. The blog responders and two of the stories touched on the central lesson which could have been extracted from watching the action, but didn’t exactly hit the nail on the head. They missed the important kernel of information: The city staff and the council majority chose to blithely ignore the very clear requirements of the California Environmental Quality Act, a reckless decision that may well come back to haunt the city and us taxpayers. 

The attorney for the appellants was Susan Brandt Hawley, probably the leading litigator in the whole state for cases which link the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) and preservation, often of historic resources. She and her many neighborhood clients were given only ten minutes to make their whole case, and she had to divide those with her geotechnical expert. But she has often taught continuing education classes for California Bar members (some of which I’ve attended) so she’s good at coming clearly to the point in a hurry.  

Here’s what she told the council: “If there is any evidence before you, facts or reasonable assumptions based on facts or expert opinions, that there might be a significant environmental impact, you can’t exempt this from CEQA.” Period.  

“It’s really a legal question, and I don’t think Mr. Cowan disagrees with me, or Ms. Rickles. The lawyers here agree,” she said. She went on, and no one contradicted her, that “it’s the ‘fair argument’standard:…what you’re looking for here tonight is whether in fact there may be a significant environmental impact.” 

In other words, if anyone has made a fair argument that the project may violate some aspect of CEQA, an Environmental Impact Report (EIR) to examine the data is required. Not optional. As City Attorney Zach Cowan knows full well, which is why he waffled inconclusively when someone asked him about it on Tuesday. 

Only Councilmembers Arreguin and Worthington demonstrated a mature, intelligent grasp of the legal questions which were before the body. Their colleagues offered inexpert opinions on architecture, aesthetics, history and traffic, with very little data and a lot of speculation on matters clearly beyond their personal expertise. 

All of the council majority’s fluffy opinions about whether or not you might be able to see the house from the road, and all of the staff’s backtracking about whether or not their own regulations mandated the use of story poles to gauge the height of the proposed building were irrelevant to the central proposition which Brandt Hawley clearly advanced. She emphasized that credible evidence that appellants had presented regarding the project’s impact on historic resources (both the house to be demolished and the neighboring historic houses) and about the geology of the building site added up to enough doubt to trigger the requirement for a full EIR. 

Mayor Bates summed up the majority attitude toward the CEQA standard as it pertained to historic resources: “As far as the landmarks commission, I don’t know exacty what happened, but ultimately we are charged, the council is charged, with whether we believe something is a landmark or not, and I believe that every member of this council, everyone one of us has been to the site, so we’ve all seen the site… so I think that’s a false issue.”  

Well, no. It’s the main issue. CEQA cares not a whit whether Mayor Bates or any of the council members believes something is a landmark or not. As long as there’s a credible contention to the contrary, an EIR is required.  

Brandt Hawley asked that a public hearing be scheduled to further examine the evidence, and that would have been a simple effective alternative to the slam-bam-thank-you-ma’am way the council dealt with the conflict. The staff had already acknowledged that their report contained major errors, and no one seemed to be able to find the letter about the historic questions which the Landmarks Commission had attempted to put into evidence—which won’t look very good for the city if the case ever gets into court. 

Several council members gushed about what lovely people live near the lovely site, accomplished, educated people all…but what no one said is that most neighbors are also, to put it politely, very well-fixed. Some are even world-renowned lawyers. If disgruntled neighbors who could afford it decided to sue to require the city to enforce the California Environmental Quality Act requirements on the applicant, it could be a very costly boondoggle for the taxpayers. 

Another story with an accompanying commentary which the Planet ran this week could teach the council and the public something. The majority of the Richmond city council decided to let Chevron, the big dog on the block, get away with a perfunctory EIRfor a proposed expansion project. 

Richmond council members got a lesson in CEQA from the appeals court which the Berkeley City Council members might have to learn for themselves the hard way. 

That’s the kind of Why which should be part of reporting on what happens every week, but it’s not easy for overworked reporters to do. In this particular instance I have the advantage of a law degree and years of experience on the Landmarks Preservation Commission, but in many other situations I’d be just as baffled as anyone else. Reporters used to have regular beats that they stayed on for years so that they could educate themselves about the ins and outs of what they were reporting on, but in this brave new world it’s a lot harder to become an expert. 

------- 

All great minds think alike. Someone else is on a similar kick this morning.  

Anyone who's worried about BP's seeming lock on a lot of space and people here in Berkeley had better read this :"...from my investigation, BP has figured out a very low-cost way to prepare for this task: BP lies. BP prevaricates, BP fabricates and BP obfuscates. That's because responding to a spill may be easy and simple, but not at all cheap. And BP is cheap. Deadly cheap." 

That's from an article Slick Operator: The BP I've Known Too Well by well-known muckraker Greg Palast on today's Truthout website. He links BP's involvement with the Valdez oil spill with the current mess they've made off the Lousiana coast. Those of us in Berkeley had better worry even more than we have already about their planned incursions into downtown Berkeley and the hills and canyons east of the UC Berkeley campus.  

By the way, one of BP's main men at UC Berkeley is now Secretary of Energy. Seems to me like that could be a problem too. 

And of course Richard Brenneman has been on BP's case for a long time...

In Firefox, Google Chrome and Safari, if you click on an image, it will be magnified. This no longer works in the latest Internet Explorer.

Latest issue of the Pepper Spray Times.

AC Transit’s Bus Rapid Transit Environmental Review Process 

What a corruption of NEPA and CEQA! Folks, that's how the process is supposed to work, you start with the draft and if out of it comes citizen formulation of new alternatives, you assess and include them in the final. How expressive of a most unimaginative and unconstructive misuse of the law, frustrating rather than promoting effective public participation. 

Antonio Rossmann 

Lecturer in Land Use and Water Resources Law at Boalt.(Berkeley Law School). 

*** 

2701 Shattuck Condo Site  

The sliver of open land at 2701 Shattuck Avenue, next to U.C. Storage building, has seen condo proposals come and go since Rev. Gordon Choyce, pastor of the Missionary Church of God in Christ, bought the property for $1.475 in 2004. A couple condo plans got the neighborhood’s thumbs-up; a couple plans got thumbs-down. Obviously the thumbs-up projects never got built. It seems that only "the ugly" (i.e., five stories, little or no parking, a “string-bean” of commercial space on the ground floor) will eventually get built because the space is small, but the demographics of the region make such a building economically feasible. Last year (2009) saw approximately 400,000 new residents in California (about 20,000 in Alameda County). Most of the growth came from immigration and the higher birth rate among immigrants who, unfortunately, cannot easily afford to purchase or rent traditional Berkeley housing. Increased population means increased pressure on resources, and Berkeley should bear its fair share. This type of project will happen, if not at 2701 Shattuck, them somewhere else, with density-bonus and other variances granted by the City that can double the size of a building without such permits. 

Robert Gable 

*** 

Don't Drop Your Guard on BRT 

Tricks and games! 

Let me get this straight: we had a city council meeting where the #1 item was scheduled last and was never addressed, followed by a far-flung, late-night, meeting with single-item agenda. A cynical way of looking at it might lead me to say the first was to assess our numbers and watch our strategies, never intending to table BRT at all. The second might be a way to deter attendance, isolate us and hope they can mow us down somehow. I think your dedication has forced them to at least give the appearance of fighting BRT, and that's nothing to sniff at. 

But don't think this is over. There's $15 million that says ACT's going to try and get their teeth as deeply into Telegraph and Temescal as they can. Don't stop now. Prepare to double your effort for the next round. Gear up just like you know it’s coming and, if it doesn't and it all goes well, stow away your picket signs and rat costumes for next time. 

Johnny Allen Shaw 

*** 

Stopping Leaks 

Let's pray we have the technology and political will to cap this massive oil leak. But we do have the technology to implement a truly clean energy economy and to lead the planet into doing so, 

Now it's time to amass the political will... 

David Weinstein 

*** 

No BRT in Berkeley 

If the issues weren't so important to Berkeley I could,once again, really get a good belly laugh out of Becky O'Malley's editorial on Bus Rapid Transit last week. The title was; Berkeley Council Rejects "Full Build" BRT..... You would have thought that a "majority" of the council was against "studying" how a bus rapid transit system would effect Berkeley, that a "majority" of the city council took a "head in the sand" position by rejecting a proposition to "study" BRT, therefore dooming this "possibly" positive addition to public transportation in Berkeley for the foreseeable future. 

However, nothing could be further from the truth. Only two members of the Berkeley City Council voted against this study, a resounding rejection by the council, according to O'Malley. With eight council members present at the meeting five votes were needed to pass a resolution to "study" BRT, not adopted BRT, but to "study" how this innovative public transportation option would effect Berkeley. 

The only grain of truth in O'Malley's editorial was that the council had four members voting yes ( 50% present at the meeting) and 2 members voting no. The other two members could not make up their minds one way or the other and abstained, and the motion to study was defeated by not having the 5th vote in favor. 

A real "rejection" by our city leaders; not in my opinion, but a real plus for O'Malley, the Berkeley Daily Planet and the party of NO in Berkeley. 

Terry Doran 

Proponents of bus rapid transit (BRT) have often engaged in a form of propaganda known as 'Lying by omission'--omitting important facts to deliberately leave someone with a misconception. It is common in our history textbooks, and on Fox News. 

Some BRT facts you may not know: BRT poster city, Bogota, has toxic air pollution (prompting a Tucson-based bicycle advocate/lawyer to describe Bogota as "a pre-apocalyptic technological dystopia") caused largely by their massive diesel-powered BRT bus system, Transmilenio. BRT did not cause a mode shift from cars to buses except by a government-enforced alternate-day private automobiles ban (based on license plate number). Still, per-capita car ownership continues to rise in Bogota year after year. Mexico City also bans private automobiles -- but only one day per week. Instead of riding the Mexico City BRT one day a week, however, residents bought a second car--driving up air pollution even further. 

Why, then, all the BRT hoopla? One reason is that big money from BP, Shell, Volvo, and other oil, bus, auto concerns fund an ever-expanding list of 'think tanks' like WRI and ITDP, and blog networks like TheCityFix.com. These outfits pump out an impressive amount of pro-BRT propaganda. Other BRT advocates are well-intentioned, but wrong--wishing this failed bus technology would succeed, they argue, 'if only it were done right'. BRT has been around for over 30 years, but apparently the world has yet to see BRT done right. Still other BRT proponents are too cynical to believe that offering citizens dignified transit and a livable city is possible anymore. We deserve better than what BRT advocates are offering. 

Protecting 60-ft long, 41,000-pound bendy buses from hulking, brutish Priuses may be a worthy goal, but why not protect cyclists and would-be cyclists first? The number one reason people do not bike to their destinations is because they are terrified of the untamed beasts which slash and burn through our streets. We fear motorcycles, cars, trucks, and especially buses. This deterrent-to-cycling effect, not pollution, is the greatest negative externality produced by motorized traffic.  

BRT advocates are too focused on motorized transportation. The Federal Department of Transportation has declared that "motorized transportation will no longer be favored at the expense of non-motorized"--it is time for Berkeley to follow suit. 

The 'transit problem' can best be addressed by reducing car- and transit-dependence. This can be done with better land-use decision-making, and by allowing people to walk and bike. We do not have to coax anyone onto a bike--we only need to give them the option of walking and biking with dignity. That means cyclists need their own space on major roads, separated from fast-moving motorized traffic. A simple bike lane is a start, but most people will never be comfortable cycling right next to fast-moving, multi-thousand-pound, free-moving chunks of glass and steel--so we need physical separation, known as 'protected bike lanes'.  

Walk and bike transportation solutions are proven: cycletracks, protected bike lanes, buffered bike lanes, regular bike lanes, sharrows, traffic-calmed streets, pedestrian bulb-outs, leading pedestrian intervals, formal and legal priority for non-motorized over motorized transport--these are the hallmarks of a civilized streetscape and an enlightened, decent, and fair society. These solutions are inexpensive and effective--good for taxpayers, motorists, cyclists and walkers, businesses, children and parents--good for Berkeley. 

Give pedestrians and cyclists the priority and space they need and deserve on our most important corridors--especially our most important corridors. Traffic-calmed neighborhood streets are great for those who don't have anywhere to go, but for those who would cycle often if given the opportunity, we need to be able to travel on the most direct routes from Point A to Point B, just like cars. And cars have engines--if there is not enough room to accomodate both motorized and non-motorized traffic, then cars can take the long way around. 

Sprawl is bad for sustainability. Whether in the form of cars, high speed rail, commuter/express rail, BRT, rapid and regular buses, light rail, and even airplanes and streetcars to a certain extent, rapid transit enables and even induces sprawl. Those interested in sustainability should think very carefully about supporting any sprawl-enabling transportation solution that will not draw people out of their cars, the most harmful of all the sprawl-enabling technologies. Bus rapid transit (BRT) has never drawn people out of their cars, in any part of the world.  

Toronto is discussing protected bike lanes for their University Avenue. San Francisco continues to experiment with protected bike lanes on that all-important of corridors, Market Street. Washington, DC is striping bike lanes down the middle of Pennsylvania Avenue. Knowing which trends to follow is a leadership quality all its own--Berkeley can once again be a leader in bicycle infrastructure by becoming an intelligent follower. 

The transit-dependent are often pitied when fare hikes and service cuts come around, as they invariably do, but missing from the discourse is talk of the responsibility that we all bear in forcing these citizens into this situation in the first place. Everyone is hailed if we can help stave off the most outrageous fare hikes and the most draconian service cuts (tax hikes in disguise), but rarely are we held accountable for failling to address the root causes of transit dependence--namely, streets which are not suitable for walking or biking. Let's reduce this dependence by making biking a viable option for everyone from the ages of 8 to 80. 

Likely side effects of favoring non-motorized over motorized transportation include, but are not limited to: reduced air and noise pollution, healthier and happier citizens (including reduced childhood obesity and related Type 2 diabetes), less traffic congestion, revitalized small businesses and town centers, higher worker productivity, reduced crime, expanded economic opportunity, a restored social fabric, safer, livelier, and more-interesting streets and places, and reduced risk that 'chocolate milk' will wash up on our shores. 

Peter Smith is a walking, cycling, livable streets, and co-operatives advocate.  

While I was brought up in a very traditional Muslim environment during my early childhood years, my views on religion have changed drastically. Now I am more of an agnostic who is verging on atheism. I don’t believe there are going to be multitude of Hoors (indescribably gorgeous women of paradise) in the offing for me after I die and go to heaven eventually – I am sure I have to endure some fire and brimstone! Having been brought up traditionally, I do have a unique perspective of looking from inside out without really being an insider. 

During my teen years in India, I saw a much more progressive Muslim world around me than what I see now. My dad was a good example of all that progressivism: he got a good education and became a doctor (physician). He worked in India for a bit, and got a chance to work in Oman in 1968, and went there leaving his family behind in hopes of freeing us from somewhat of a grim future. But even then, as evident in my father’s case, the Muslims in India stood a good chance of doing well if they worked hard despite being a minority group: my uncle did his masters before settling down in the family business. No one on my uncle’s side of the family has done better education-wise since then, and that was forty years ago! 

After some tattered schooling and some failed academic endeavors, my father sent us to a boarding school in Aligarh (a university town) for education along with our sister who was attending a girl’s college which was also there: he was an alumnus of the University so he saw it fit to give us the same opportunity. Aligarh Muslim University was very progressive, liberal, and cosmopolitan despite being steeped in traditions (no one was allowed to wear the traditional cotton trouser and top other than mid Friday in public unless it was accompanied by a long formal coat). There was a particular code of behavior when it came to interacting with seniors, and language was to be used in a refined manner. I often got chided for improper diction and pronunciation.  

There were quite a few international students at the campus. Although I was attending a university affiliated high school, I had access to the university and its facilities, and I knew more than a few seniors with whom I often socialized. I used to go the university gymnasium and the recreation rooms of the dormitories, where I played bridge, billiards, table tennis, and roller skated. I use to talk ad nauseum about movies, music, science, poetry, and general knowledge: While people were somewhat religious, it was never discussed or proselytized. I couldn’t attend the University language clubs but there was a German, a Russian, and a French club at the University. There was even an equestrian club. I also went to see plays and old films at the Kennedy center: an art and culture hub of the campus, and so named because it was built by a grant from the United States. The area in and around the campus was teeming with tea houses, cafés, and restaurants. There were annual functions, shows, dinners, performances. The campus was a far cry from my narrow-minded and religious early childhood that I had witnessed when I lived at my grandparents’ house. When I went back to visit this very same campus after fourteen years, I hardly recognized it. Gone was the impeccable use of the language, along with proper attire or behavior. The buildings and gardens too looked a bit dilapidated. But the most notable change was the whole atmosphere: It now emanated religious austerity and regression, and attitudes seemed rather pedestrian. 

The news of my sister attending college elicited vociferous ridicule and gossip from our relatives and friends of the family. They thought my father was committing a faux pas, and his aspirations for his daughter were out of step with the cultural mores of the time. But they thought it was heretical effrontery when she decided to study further: The general consensus was that a post graduate study was an abomination for a Muslim girl and for her to get married immediately the only honorable option.  

While at college, my sister was very chic for her time, and wore the latest fashions and prints. She had quite a few western outfits (bell bottoms and all) – something she can’t even imagine wearing today! She didn’t wear hijab (head covering), and very few other Muslim women wore it back then. But more educated women definitely eschewed hijab, opting to cover their heads during religious ceremonies and somber occasions only. All her daughters wear hijab now, and my sister won’t afford them the same chance at higher education that she herself had three decades ago: a decision I don’t think is entirely hers but there is certainly complicity. 

Despite all the protests my father stayed steadfast, and in my view, did right by defying his detractors. He certainly gave us (the eldest 4 of us) a very forward looking philosophy in life. When I left home for US to study, he never flinched while my mother’s wailing never ceased. My father was very outgoing, and socialized with all sorts of people. He attended cocktail parties while he was working in Oman, which was run mostly by British expats. He did socialize with the locals as well, sat in tents in the desert heat sipping Turkish coffee, and learning the etiquette of the Bedouins. Some of the guests at our house in Oman were British who loved my mother’s cooking. When I was in Oman, we attended Colonel Bosted’s yearly Christmas party: one of my father’s good friend and possibly a British agent. My mother grew up in a small town in India: she was modestly educated but conservative. But she learned to throw grand soirees, and make some fancy western desserts to entertain these guests. My father also organized lavish picnics and potlucks where everyone was invited and the sexes comingled. My mother was more religious than my father but she never raised an eyebrow at my father, and took part in these events enthusiastically. My father always encouraged us to interact socially, and he never lectured us or chastised us about religion. 

So what has changed in the last thirty years? Why are my younger siblings, who were raised in a more urbane environment, and had better education, are less progressive than my father? This phenomenon is not only limited to India: it afflicts the Muslim community everywhere. These are the same people who produced hoards of scholars, poets, philosophers, and scientists during multiple golden periods but are now obsessively preoccupied with a fourteen hundred year oldSharia (Quranic Laws) and Sunna (tales of the Prophet’s life and practices), overanalyzing anachronistic minutiae while the rest of world hurls towards modernism. Why is this group of people -- who ruled the entire Middle East and parts of the Near East, North Africa, and most of the Iberian Peninsula, who can boast among their luminaries people like Avicenna (Ibn Sina, the father of modern medicine), Ibn Battuta (a scholar who spent thirty years traveling and writing about his journeys, which were more extensive than Marco Polo’s), who were responsible for chemistry, trigonometry (furthering), algebra, cartography, nautical technology, and astronomy (many stars are still called by their original Arabic names), who gave us the numerals we use today, who translated the classics into Arabic (some of the only surviving texts from ancient Greece), and who produced forward thinkers like Al Khindi, Averroes (Ibn Rushd), Al Farabi (Alpharabius), Khayyam, Rumi, Ibn Sinnan, Khalil Gibran, and Al Ghazali to name just a few – now tenously enmeshed in a rigid, non-secular ideology that defies the logic and lucid thinking of the aforementioned illustrious names? 

I can go back into Islamic history and 911 to draw conclusions for the current state of affairs filling pages. But one has to merely look at the past thirty years to see the causes of this transformation. Thirty years ago this community was on a path of modernity, but now it looks to the past for outmoded doctrines to guide them into the future? This unrealistic attempt to bridge the Sharia to the current era has resulted in ideology that is mostly rickety and praetorian. This gives rise to extreme fringe elements that are free to interpret the Sharia for their selfish means. There is another reason for this rash rush towards an appearance of solidarity by reversion, and it is – that the Muslim world sees itself and its culture under siege by the west. It is easy to deduce these sentiments by the notable events which have taken place in the last thirty years. There was the creation of Israel in the heart of the Middle East some sixty years ago which displaced about a million Palestinians, and after the 1967 war it has become quite obvious to them that no one is listening to the plight of the Palestinians in the occupied territory as they themselves are quite powerless against a military juggernaut like Israel (remember also that the Muslims faced towards Dome of the Rock to pray before Mecca). This one event has slowly festered into their psyche like a cancer over time: it has finally metastasized and spread throughout the Islamic world with the advent of information technology and global news in the last thirty years. Soon after this came the exodus of Palestinians into southern Lebanon and its occupation, and the Sabra Shatila massacre of the Palestinian refugees. The early nineties brought the four year siege of Sarajevo and the massacre of Muslims in Srebrenica. The mid to late nineties brought two Chechnya wars, and the geographic and economic strangulation of occupied territories of Gaza and West Bank. The late nineties also brought the ethnic cleansing of Muslim Kosovars by the Serbs. This early millennium has brought the bloody wars of Iraq and Afghanistan (both of which still continue), the bombing of Lebanon, and the assault on Gaza which was declared inhumane by an independent UN war commission.  

The Muslim community has done poorly to keep itself off the media’s radar since 911, but the rhetoric of racially tinged ridicule of this community in the media, and the poor depiction of their culture has reached a new nadir (an Arabic term by way of Spanish). Almost nothing seems to be off limits to the comics and talking heads, and the cultural insensitivities are simply brazen. This sort of rhetoric does nothing to mend relationship with the west which is already quite deteriorated. Although I may not agree with the extreme isolationist reaction by the Muslim community for being calumniated, I can, however, see how this metamorphosis of ideology has precipitated in just thirty years. 

Petroleum executives assure us that their giant tankers and offshore oil rigs pose no danger to the environment; coal company CEOs insist that their mines are safe and that blasting away mountaintops is ecologically benign; natural gas companies insist that “fracking” deep underground geological formations will not contaminate fresh water aquifers; and nuclear power promoters tell us not to worry about core meltdowns or the disposal of millions of tons of highly radioactive waste.

Do we have S-T-U-P-I-D written on our foreheads? Or do we just choose to swallow these lies because, like addicts everywhere, we need these pushers to provide us with our daily energy fix? 

These energy “suppliers” have a sordid history of crimes against nature and humanity and their assurances of safety have proven tragically wrong time after time. Clearly their drive for profit knows no ethical or legal boundaries. So why do we continue buy their lies, and reward them with lavish subsidies and tax breaks, instead of kicking our habit and sending these petroleum pushers to prison? 

Just last year BP—who now tells us BP stands for “Beyond Petroleum,” not British Petroleum—told the government that an oil spill like the one wreaking havoc in the Gulf was highly unlikely so they didn’t need to install the remote controlled valves that could prevent an uncontrolled blowout. Beyond Petroleum?…more like Beyond Belief. 

According to the watchdog group, Public Citizen, BP has the worst criminal rap sheet of any oil company—and that’s no mean feat. In the last few years, BP has paid $485 million in fines and settlements to the US government for environmental crimes, willful neglect of worker safety, and penalties for manipulating energy markets. As BP’s massive oil slick smothers the Gulf’s fragile wetland ecosystems and lays waste to the fishing and tourist industries, assurances of safety are no more credible than the sworn testimony of a career criminal. 

The same goes for the Massey Coal Company—the biggest coal mining business in central Appalachia. Massey insisted its Montcoal operation was safe right up to the day when their mine--that was repeatedly cited for improperly venting methane gas--exploded killing 29 people in the country's deadliest underground disaster in a quarter-century. 

Last year, the number of citations issued against the mine more than doubled and the penalties proposed against the mine more than tripled. Massey was fined $897,325 over the last year, more than $382,000 for repeated serious violations involving its ventilation system. Andrew Tyler, a conveyer belt electrician, told the New York Times that live wires were often left exposed and that coal dust and methane accumulation were routinely ignored. Yet, after the explosion, Massey CEO Don Blankenship told Metronews radio that, despite the company’s many violations, the Mine Safety and Health Administration would never have allowed the mine to operate if it had been unsafe. 

It’s time to clear our heads of gasoline fumes and our economic arteries of high-octane euphoria. Energy addiction is distorting our judgment and allowing these energy pushers to get away with murder and ecocide. Unless we come to our senses soon, we will have sacrificed the planet to feed our addiction. 

Craig Collins, Ph.D., of California State University East Bay, is the author of the newly released book, TOXIC LOOPHOLES: Failures and Future prospects of Environmental Law (Cambridge University Press) 

On Mayday, I participated in the march and rally in SF for immigrant rights. I do this because I think that people should come before profits, human rights before property rights, and if those principles held true, we wouldn't need borders in the first place. 

The march of about 10,000 people ended at Civic Center. Across the street, in front of City Hall, there was a small counter-demostration, a total of 31 persons, strung out along about 200 feet of sidewal, holding signs. Some were the usual advertisements, like "Minutemen securing America's borders," which constitute the mask behind which Minutemen harass Latinos in Chicago, Los Angeles, or North Carolina, far from the Mexican border. And there were the outright lies, such as "Illegals cost us trillions," where just the opposite is the case. Immigrants come to work, produce value, get minimum pay or less, pay taxes, and pay into social security without ever having a prayer of eventually benefiting from any of it. They send home what they can, and the rest benefits us, including those holding their perfidious signs. 

But three signs in particular caught my eye. 

One said "We need more ice at this fiesta." Ice, of course, is a reference to ICE, Immigration Control and Enforcement. Since this was directed at our demonstration, it was a suggestion that the demonstration itself (including myself) needed to be deported. You remember the old saw (from Cold War years), "if you don't like it here, go back where you came from." Beyond admitting the well-known fact that all non-indigenous people in the US are descended from immigrants, it meant that our tenure or residency here is contingent on agreeing with certain people arrogant enough to set standards for us. It is not the law that these counter-demos want to enforce, but the purity and homogeneity of their kind of society and culture. We know, from European experience, what that ethos looks like when it gets militarized. 

Another sign said, "Get in line to become an American (legally)." America is two continents full of people. The immigrants who come from countries south of us are already Americans. Many of them are the sons and daughters of people who have been on these two continents for millenia, much longer than those individuals with their white faces claiming to be the "Americans." For people in the US to consider themselves "the" Americans is to reduce all the other Americans to lesser status through their exclusion from being Americans; in other words, to dispossess them of their dignity and humanity as Americans. It is therefore a colonialist attitude, using a structure of racism as its technology. But there is no term by which people of the US can refer to themselves as simply "people of the US," free from the arrogance of being "the" Americans. In Spanish, there is such a term. It is estadounidense. It means a person from the US. There is no direct translation of this term in English. One possible translation of estadounidense would be "USian." People in the US could then refer to themselves as "USians" if they believe in the equality of peoples, which is one of the foundations of democracy. Perhaps these counter-demos should stand in line to become pro-democratic. If they work at it, some of them might make it. 

But finally, there was one that said, "Illegals are not a race." Of the 31 people in the counter-demo, three were black. Two, a man and woman, were holding this sign. I found myself wondering what they were doing in the counter-demo. They should have been with us. What the immigrant rights movement is fighting for is an end to the racialization (i.e. made a social category that is dispossessed, demonized, and segregated) of Latino immigrants by government and white populists like the Minutemen. 

It is true, "illegals" are not a race, and neither are immigrants. Neither are black people or white. Black people are not born black. The term "black" used in that sentence does not refer descriptively to color, but to a social category. That is, the term has both a descriptive and a racializing use. Whatever their color may be, and human coloration (descriptively) varies over a continuous spectrum, they are not born as socially categorized. They are made "black" (as a social category) by the white supremacist society into which they are born. Similarly, white people are not born white. They too are made white (as a different social category) by the white supremacist society into which they are born. White supremacy gets away with a lot of stuff because it maintains a certain confusion between socially categorizing labels and the other role of those terms as descriptive. One of the things it gets away with is getting other white people to perform their whiteness by seeing themselves as white. For white people to see themselves as white, they have to define others and see others as non-white in order to see themselves as not that, within the matrix (remember the movie, "The Matrix"?) of white supremacy, and to think that that is a normal way to be. But it isn't. It's a politically and culturally determined social category, in a hierarchical relation to other social categories. Here's an example. A white person might say, "I don't see myself as white, I'm just human. I think all people should think that way, including black people." But black people in the US have had to live their entire lives dealing with and resisting white supremacy, which isn't true for white people. For a white person to think that black people should just give that up, and abandon who they have had to become to deal with and resist all that, because this white person can, is a way of acting white. In pretending to give up telling others who they are, it continues to tell them who they should be, rather than simply let them decide how to live this difficult society, and respect that decision. 

In the meantime, we are all racialized (white, black, Latino, Native American, Asian, Middle Eastern) by white supremacy and the social machinery (the identities, institutions, and attitudes) by which it produces that racialization and imposes it. Where does racism fit into this? Racism is the technology of that white machine. 

In the wake of the emotional debate about the divestment bill in the Berkeley Student Senate (titled, “A Bill In Support of UC Divestment from War Crimes”[1]), a number of antisemitic incidents have occurred on campus. Most notably, last week there were two instances of large swastikas drawn on the walls of student dorms. We don’t know if the perpetrators were mischief-makers or sociopaths. During the official public discussion of the bill, some participants uttered offensive speech. One woman accosted a yarmulke-clad man and said, “You really look like a Nazi.” Later that evening a male student shouted to a group of Jewish students, “You killed Jesus.” On the one hand, the perpetrators of these and other recent antisemitic gestures are exceptions to the normal standard of behavior at Berkeley, which generally prizes tolerance of ethnic, racial, and religious minorities. On the other hand, tolerance for the rights of others has taken a beating during this emotion-laden debate. 

The problem is neatly summarized by my faculty colleague, Judith Butler, a prominent supporter of the bill, with whom I will interact in my comments below. She wrote in 2003, “we distinguish between anti-semitism and forms of protest against the Israeli state (or right-wing settlers who sometimes act independently of the state), acknowledging that sometimes they do, disturbingly, work together.” [2] This is the problem: critical speech about the policies of the government of Israel sometimes works together with, or excites, antisemitism. Most people who protest against Israeli policies or actions are not themselves antisemites, nor do they indulge in antisemitic speech or actions. But sometimes these critics produce what Butler elsewhere calls “excitable speech,” that is, speech that has the capability of suppressing, subordinating, and “othering” a particular group.[3] Antisemitic speech is an obvious example of excitable speech. Calling Jews “Nazis” or “Christ-killers” is excitable hate-speech, which performs the effect of anathematizing and dehumanizing in the speech-act itself. 

But what of speech or actions that are clearly not antisemitic, but which can have the effect of exciting or inciting antisemitic speech or actions by others? Butler rightly maintains that speech or actions critical of Israel must not be silenced by the fear of being wrongly understood by others as antisemitic. She writes:

 

even if one believed that criticisms of Israel are by and large heard as anti-semitic (by Jews, anti-semites, or people who could be described as neither), it would become the responsibility of all of us to change the conditions of reception so that the public might begin to distinguish between criticism of Israel and a hatred of Jews.[4]

I agree with Butler’s position. We must create a space where legitimate political criticism of Israel is clearly distinguished from antisemitism. I maintain that the best way to create this space is to insist on clear and reasoned political discourse, which eschews propagandistic methods and deceptive half-truths. In other words, we should reject the kinds of visceral and angry words that one often sees on Fox News (on the right), MSNBC (on the mid-left), and the radical media (on the far left). We should reject the tone of discourse that has colored this debate on the Berkeley campus. To cite an enlightening philosophical tract by Harry Frankfurt, we should eschew “bullshit.”[5]  

Frankfurt defines bullshit as speech that is not only deceptive and untruthful, but that is oblivious to its untruthfulness. It is speech that simply doesn’t care about being truthful, since it has other ends, such as selling products, political positions, or personalities. For example, the title of the divestment bill at Berkeley is “A Bill In Support of UC Divestment from War Crimes.” Now, every person of good will opposes war crimes. Such a bill ought to be as controversial and divisive as a bill in support of motherhood and apple pie. But this bill’s title is obviously deceptive, since the content of the bill is entirely devoted to criticism of Israel.[6] Serious allegations have indeed been made against Israel for violations of the Fourth Geneva Convention and the supplementary Protocol in its war with Gaza and its settlements in the West Bank. These allegations ought to be fully investigated and, if substantiated, the perpetrators ought to be punished and restitution made. I think most people of good will would agree. But to insinuate that Israel is the sole or primary perpetrator of war crimes in the world, the Middle East, or in the Israel/Palestine conflict is an obvious falsehood.  

The bill brazenly says that it is using “the Israel/Palestine conflict” simply “as a case-study.” But it omits the relevant detail that the Hamas government of Gaza has been accused of war crimes by the very same human rights groups that have accused Israel. This omission falsifies the bill’s claim to address war crimes in the Israel/Palestine conflict. The bill also condemns Israel’s blockade of Gaza, but omits the relevant detail that Egypt is a partner in the blockade. In other words, the bill isn’t about war crimes as a global or regional issue, nor is it about war crimes in the Israel/Palestine conflict. It is only about criticizing and stigmatizing Israel, and in so doing it seeks to create a semantic association between “Israel” and “war crimes” as if the two terms were analogous or synonymous. This is, according to Frankfurt’s definition, an obvious case of bullshit. The bill doesn’t even care that it is untruthful, since truthfulness is not its goal. Its goal is to portray Israel as a pariah nation, as the instantiation of the evil of war crimes. 

This kind of bullshit, if it is slung properly, creates an intelligible space where Israel is promoted as the world’s misfortune. From this cognitive space, the jump to the inference that the Jews are the world’s misfortune is a small one. With some trepidation, I would like to cite an illustration of this dangerous slippage from Butler’s recently published speech in support of the bill. [7] She begins with her moral education, which roots her remarks in Jewish authenticity:

 

The worst injustice, I learned, was to remain silent in the face of criminal injustice. And this tradition of Jewish social ethics was crucial to the fights against Nazism, fascism and every form of discrimination, and it became especially important in the fight to establish the rights of refugees after the Second World War. Of course, there are no strict analogies between the Second World War and the contemporary situation, and there are no strict analogies between South Africa and Israel, but there are general frameworks for thinking about [such matters].

In these stirring comments, Butler attests that her criticism of Israeli policies is based on Jewish social ethics, which are intrinsically opposed to Nazism, fascism, and discrimination. I don’t doubt her sincerity. But by framing her criticism of Israel with an ethical stand against Nazism, she implicitly proposes an analogy between Nazi Germany and Israel. She both acknowledges and qualifies this analogy in her statement: “Of course, there are no strict analogies between the Second World War and the contemporary situation, and there are no strict analogies between South Africa and Israel.” But by saying “there are no strict analogies,” a phrase that she repeats twice, she implicitly affirms that there are general or loose analogies, the scope and content of which she does not address.  

Since the implied analogies among Israel, Nazi Germany, and Apartheid South Africa are left open, Butler’s speech creates a semantic a gap that asks to be filled in by the listener. Her statement seems to perform what she seems to deny, that is, the establishment of an ethical analogy among these regimes. I would suggest that this rhetorical strategy is a perspicuous example of excitable speech, which aims to anathematize and “other” Israel as the world’s contemporary misfortune, just as the analogous states were in the past If to some degree Israel ≈ Nazi Germany ≈ Apartheid South Africa, then of course we should hate it. This is propagandistic speech, characterized by inflammatory half-truths, and which seems unconcerned with its truth-content. It is speech that lends at least qualified support to those who would lump together these nations as instantiations of evil. The accusations of “Nazi” and “Apartheid” pepper contemporary anti-Israel discourse, and such accusations clearly create a space that excites and incites antisemitic speech and acts. 

I want to be clear: I am not accusing Butler of intending or condoning antisemitism in her criticisms of Israel. But I do want to point out that, as she says of these types of discourse, “sometimes they do, disturbingly, work together.” We need to be self-critical and vigilant to ensure that our political debates do not shade into or excite antisemitic speech and actions. The only way to do this is to eschew half-truths, deceptions, propaganda, and “bullshit.” Only by embracing the virtues of clear thought and rational discourse can we hope to create a space where political diversity and ethical community can coexist. To this end, we must be careful not to sow the seeds of hatred. As the biblical prophet Hosea says, “They who sow the wind will reap the whirlwind.” We are responsible for exercising our free speech with malice towards none if we truly want to change the world. 

N.B. This speech was delivered at a rally against antisemitism in Sproul Plaza on April 30, 2010. 

[1]The text of the bill is available at http://www.asuc.org/documentation/view.php?type=bills&id=2017. The initial vote in favor of the bill was vetoed by the Student Senate President, and the veto was subsequently sustained by the Senate. 

[2] Judith Butler, “No, It’s Not Anti-Semitic,” London Review of Books, vol. 25, no. 16 (August, 2003), pp. 19-21, available at http://www.lrb.co.uk/v25/n16/judith-butler/no-its-not-anti-semitic. 

[3] Judith Butler, Excitable Speech: A Politics of the Performative (London: Routledge, 1997). 

[4]“Not Anti-Semitic.” 

[5] Harry G. Frankfurt, On Bullshit (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2008). 

[6]The last sentence, added in committee, raises the possibility of future resolutions against Morocco and the Congo. 

[7] Judith Butler, “You Will Not Be Alone,” The Nation, April 13, 2010, available at http://www.thenation.com/doc/20100426/butler.  

Ronald Hendel is the Norma and Sam Dabby Professor of Hebrew Bible and Jewish Studies at the University of California, Berkeley. 

04-30-10 Letters to The Editor  

UC Berkeley’s New Hybrid 

The odd-shaped new hybrid cars racing around the roads give me hope that someday driving won’t always be considered such a deep insult to the planet. The word hybrid has an intriguing tone; old and new in combination, possibly representative of things green, sustainable and good. 

So I was fascinated to read that the UC Berkeley’s athletics program was now a hybrid. The sports programs used to be considered “auxiliary”, an April report explained, which meant they had to be financially self-sufficient.  

But now, under the new “hybrid” status, they can use money meant for academic programs and enjoy a new, more flexible financial standard. 

Sports programs which used to have to raise their own funds through ticket prices and fees can now, according to the report, use more general campus funds previously reserved for academic departments.  

It still may annoy the Academic Senate that sports programs enjoy subsidies while academic courses are cut and instructors are laid off, but the semantic sleight of hand reduces the impression of fiduciary impropriety. 

UC Berkeley’s willingness to redefine accounting vocabulary to excuse misplaced financial priorities inspires awe in this alumna, especially against the backdrop of Goldman Sachs employees testifying before congress that betting against their own financial instruments is perfectly legal and reasonable.  

The unilateral move of athletics programs from auxiliary to hybrid status is undeniably impressive. The football team may have been an embarrassment this year, but I must say, this hybrid stuff is a really good game 

Carol Denney 

*** 

Smyth-Fernwald Situation 

This is in response to Mr. Michael Stephens’ opinion piece posted April 13th entitled “Just love the Hysteria.” His letter contains several inaccuracies and misrepresentations which I would like to address. 

In his critique of my letter from the previous week entitled “UC Plans to Destroy Smyth-Fernwald,” Mr. Stephens erroneously claims that I had “no suggestions” to make other than that UC was planning a “seismic installation” at the Smyth-Fernwald property. In truth, I had a great deal to suggest. I cite numerous examples and provide a significant body of evidence signaling UC’s intent to destroy Smyth-Fernwald. I also explain my opposition thereof. The already installed “seismic device” mentioned was described only as a precursor to the imminent destruction which, as I predicted, has indeed already begun. 

Mr. Stephens then goes on to describe me as “hysterical,” “confused” and “paranoid,” for my referring to Smyth-Fernwald as an “irreplaceable treasure,” and an area of “ecological significance.” I even managed to elicit a “laugh out loud” reaction to my assertions that the natural beauty and fragility of the area should be preserved rather than destroyed. Mr. Stephens cites his reasons for such mirth as….1) The area is largely unknown and rarely visited by Berkeley residents, and…2) The area sits adjacent to a protected parkland, (therefore rendering it, presumably, not deserving of protection itself.) Without expending dozens of words in explanation, I believe most educated people will agree that the ecological value, significance or importance of an area is not measured by human visitation, nor predicated on its proximity to already protected lands or waterways. 

I have received other, more reasonable reactions to my letter. I was contacted by the Berkeley Architectural Heritage Association in which they expressed their dismay over the possible loss of the historically precious Smyth House, which they have discovered to be even older than previously believed, having most likely been built in the 1860s. BAHA explained, however, there is nothing they can do, as UC is “a law unto itself.” I have also heard from 2 property owner groups whose properties lie adjacent to Smyth-Fernwald along Hamilton Creek. Here, “deer graze, wild turkeys display” and even “wild fox” have been seen. I was told that these owners “benefit from the wildness,” and are seeking to “join with other owners in permanently protecting the area.” Perhaps Mr. Stephens will laugh out loud to learn that these property owners are concerned with preserving the value of their properties, as well as maintaining their quality of life. How hysterical of them. 

Because the intent of Mr. Stephen’s letter was clearly more about deriding me for my “sensitive soul” environmentalism, rather than offering coherent arguments against it, I can only surmise that he was simply p.o.’d over my criticisms of his beloved alma mater, UCB. Speaking of which, evidence has recently come to light from old Berkeley City Council records, that there was an agreement between the University and the city of Berkeley in 1946, designating the Smyth-Fernwald property to be kept as a “parkland” and an “open buffer” zone between Hillside and UC. However, now UC claims they cannot find any such document. Wow, what a surprise! But realistically, it wouldn’t matter anyway. No written agreement, or even environmental law is going to stop UC from arrogantly wielding its power and doing whatever it wants, Berkeley citizenry be damned. 

Kevin Moore 

*** 

Housing Advocates Oppose 1200 Ashby Deal 

There are actually a lot of HAC members who are against allowing 1200 Ashby from being built. This mostly stems from the building hogging section 8 credits from other deserving building projects, also the question of the plans showing that this is as it stands not a Senior Housing facility. Anyone can go to the Planning Dept. and check this out. Also, some members are just waiting for June 30th to roll around and disappear the development for the time being at least. 

With this in mind, I believe that along with making the plan changes I wrote about in my first letter to make this actually a senior housing facility. I also think that up to 32 apartments ( no studios are shown in the plans, a mistake )should be removed and intermittent lounges should be planned for. 

As a 47 year veteran of architectural practice and having worked with many developers in the past, it appears in my opinion that this is a "move to market" development and I believe that as soon as he can (when the market improves) he will attempt to remove it from senior housing rolls. 

I think if most of these changes (and those from my first letter) are made, staff, commission, council and the people of Berkeley will stand behind it. 

Alan (Avram) Gur Arye 

retired architect 

*** 

The Answer is Plastics 

In the SF Chronicle, April 28, a front page story is about plastic toys being banned in Santa Clara County over concerns of their contributing to childhood obesity. The main concern should be for their contributing to the expanding environmental overload of plastics already causing floating plastic garbage patches over thousands of square miles of Pacific and Atlantic oceans. These toys made of non-biodegradable plastic quickly get broken, lost or thrown away to end up going to our dumps or worse, if loose on the ground as they may in rainfall events get carried to streams or drains eventually getting to the oceans. Floating around whole or in pieces some plastic gets mistaken for food by fish, which end up with their guts jammed up and unable to take in real food. Several ocean conservation groups have pictures of fish collected with their guts crammed with plastic. I urge readers to get action in Alameda and other counties to do what Santa Clara County has done, and I propose further action to get the chains to substitute plastic food containers with biodegradable containers. 

Another point to go with this is that the federal govt. has no office or agency to develop a comprehensive best program to handle our waste messes especially organic wastes and sewage. In the UK two different offices have been established to develop wastes strategies. I urge readers to call on their federal elected officials to get such an agency going; perhaps posting a comment on Obama's Whitehouse website might get some attention quickly if more than a few comments get posted there. 

One action for such an agency quickly to consider might be "strip mining" as it were of the plastics on the oceans, at least in the part with the thickest piling up of plastics, especially the middle of the patch in the Pacific ocean as an eddying action keeps pushing outlying plastics to the center. Just about all plastic that floats is of the 1-7 recyclable type that can be burned with just carbon dioxide being given off to generate electricity. A surface skimming, which the US Coast Guard was supposedly trying, would get a coal-like fuel without coal mining dangers that have gotten much recent attention due to deaths at several mines, without environmental scars from blowing off mountain tops or from dumping mine wastes, and without mercury emissions. The collected plastic might be gotten cheaper than mined coal so that the cost of collecting it could be recovered, perhaps even with some profit being made, and many extra benefits for the environment would occur with getting plastic from being eaten by fish. 

Dr. J. Singmaster,  

Ret. Environmental Chemist 

*** 

Accountability on Wall Street 

# The Wall Street Accountability Act will regulate shadow markets that previously escaped regulators and hold big banks and financial institutions accountable for their own decisions and make them plan ahead for possible losses and also assure tax payers they won't be stuck bailing out banks again.It will also give shareholders new power to stop exorbitant bonuses that reward executive failures. Finally, it would require banks and non-lending institutions to provide clear, understandable information to consumers. 

In addition, it would require complicated derivative transactions to take place in an open, transparent way. 

Amity Buxton 

*** 

Oppose Smart Meters 

PGE is installing Smart Meters on Alameda County homes and businesses, often without residents’ consent. State Senator Dean Florez has called for a moratorium due to inordinate billing increases. Sebastopol requested a moratorium citing concerns about health and radio frequency radiation, reading accuracy, and interference with appliances. In light of those issues, lack of security and vulnerability to hackers, or inadequate privacy, Alameda County residents may wish to sign a petition to the Alameda County Board of Supervisors and City Councils, Assemblymember Nancy Skinner, State Senator Loni Hancock, Governor Schwarzenegger, and the California Public Utilities Commission. The petition requests that they:  

1. Call for an immediate moratorium on the installation of Smart Meters;  

2. Thoroughly investigate the program and the six concerns above by holding public hearings and requiring independent testing;  

3. Require PGE to submit a characterization study of the system planned for Alameda County;  

4. Allow customers to "opt out" of program; and  

5. Call for a moratorium on the disposal, recycling, or permanent alteration of the old meters.  

Here is the online petition: petitiononline.com For people who prefer a paper petition, that is often an option at the north Berkeley farmers' market on Thursday afternoons. 

Phoebe Anne Sorgren 

Everyone's celebrating the Governor's "pledge" to save the Cal Grant... everyone except for students, that is. The pledge to save the Cal grant doesn't save anything at all. In fact, it hurts low income students and their families.  

If you dissect this “pledge,” the truth reveals the Governor has made another empty statement that still cuts funding to higher education. In his official statement, the Governor says: “I will not sign a budget without those increases in there,” referring to his January budget proposal. Let’s break it down. First, Schwarzenegger stated that he will not cut from the $2 billion he proposed in January. This alleged increase actually is a reimbursement to this year’s budget from last year to supplement the mandated enrollment growth increases. As for the Cal Grant, the Governor said that he would not sign a budget that makes any additional cuts to the Cal Grant than the budget that he proposed in January. Looking at his January proposal, this means that eliminating the Competitive Cal Grant, decoupling the Cal Grant from fee increases (leaving a $3,000 gap), and capping the income ceiling limit are still on the table. If there were any additional cuts made to Schwarzenegger’s January proposal, the Cal Grant program would be destroyed.  

In short, students will still be burdened with being billed $10,000 for fees without having a secure source of financial aid to help pay for it.  

Saving funding for higher education and the Cal Grant was originally a demand that students made during meetings with the Governor at UCSA’s Lobby Day on March 1st and through mobilizations made at the capitol and across campuses during the year. On Lobby Day, the Governor pledged to save the Competitive Cal Grant if there was an increase in revenue from tax receipts. On Tax Day, there was a 3.9% increase from receipts, which would be able to fund the Competitive Cal Grant. California’s tax-paying families have upheld our part of the bargain, why hasn’t the Governor?  

Students feel cheated and frustrated with the Governor failing to keep his promise. The Governor is perpetuating a broken system that he helped create where the state funds prisons more than higher education. Students will not stand for this. We will take action until he keeps his word and gives what is owed to us. We're going to hold the Governor accountable to his promise to restore the Cal Grant and increase support for higher education. 

The University of California Student Association is the official voice of over 200,000 undergraduate, graduate, and professional students from the eleven UC campuses. It is our mission to advocate on behalf of current and future students for the accessibility, affordability, and quality of the University of California system. 

May is Older Americans Month. Older than what?, I ask and receive a dull look. 55? 60? 65? It all depends…  

This year's theme -- "Age Strong! Live Long!" -- recognizes the diversity and vitality of today's older Americans who span 3 generations.  

A meeting with the National Council of Senior Citizens resulted in President John F. Kennedy designating May 1963 as Senior Citizens Month, encouraging the nation to pay tribute to older people across the country. In 1980, President Jimmy Carter’s proclamation changed the name to Older Americans Month, a time to celebrate those 65 and older through ceremonies, events and public recognition. 

Elders are getting some positive attention because more people are living longer. Old people in general are better educated, retiring earlier and living longer. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, the number of people age 65 or older has tripled over the past 50 years to a record 420 million worldwide.  

The way a society (the dominant culture) perceives a person or a group of people can restrict and assign them to certain roles. In 1940, Bernard M. Baruch (1870-1975) -- then 70 years old -- declared “Aging is not ‘lost youth’ but a new stage of opportunity and strength.” The 20th Century did not find the secret of eternal youth. A term coined in France described the period of active old age as the ‘third age,’ following the ‘first age’ of childhood and youth and the ‘second age’ of adult maturity. The later, less active and independent phase of life was the ‘fourth age.’ (Read more about this in Pat Thane’s splendid book, “A history of old age,” published by the J Paul Getty Museum in 2005.)  

“Forever young?” asks the May 2010 issue of Consumer Reports, and responds with “What works – and what doesn’t -- in the ongoing quest for youth.” Baldness remedies, hiding hair loss, hair dyes (rated on a scale of 10 for gray coverage), and anti-wrinkle serums (“inflated claims and limited results”) are evaluated.  

One’s image can influence the way a person sees her or himself. It can also impact opportunities for employment, pension income, legal equity and health.

 

The bulletin board announces that a man and his sons, ages 5 and 7, “challenge” residents of a low-income senior/disabled housing project to scrabble and dominoes. Someone has scribbled “BRIDGE CHESS POKER” across it.  

Members of a group of senior citizens (women) and a disabled person (man) are urged to volunteer. Crocheting is imposed as an example. Silence. Each is then queried regarding current volunteering, in a double whammy of ageism involving both role assignment and assumption.

Ageism is any discrimination against people on the basis of chronological age. Referring to a person's age in a context in which age is not relevant reinforces society’s emphasis on youth as the optimum stage of life. In the workforce, “older workers” become another group to be demeaned or protected. In the media, women are often designated as ‘grandmothers.’  

The metaphor for happiness is youth. Advertisers sell images of happiness and well-being. Consider TV commercials’ biased role assignments, stereotypes and image distortion (toothpaste or Coke, for example). Senior groups, service providers, and academics in the United States and Canada note that ageism can be a factor in elder abuse.  

The cautious health system, allied with pharmaceutical companies, imposes “consulting family members” while the demographics of aging clearly show that old people often do not have families. Possibly, they are happily single, never married, widowed… Moreover, many have never been parents, let alone grandparents. 

A University of Florida study report contends that contemporary children’s books now depict upbeat, active and wise grandparents. Do you agree? A generation ago they were portrayed in children's literature as grumpy, mean or doddering. Today, when old people (let’s say age 65+) appear in picture books, easy books, comics and stories, they are still too often characterized as grandparents or in ageist ways that connote illness, disability or death. 

Ways to analyze children’s books for positive images are similar to those applicable to racism and sexism. When selecting library books, book purchases for children, and books to read to and with them:

Look for portrayals of aging as a natural and lifelong process-- old workers, old people in the community, old leaders, famous old people, active and capable old people, similarities between young and old, and intergenerational activities.  

Consider the author’s or illustrator’s background and perspective. Yes, a book that deals with the feelings and insights of an old person should be more carefully examined if written by a young person. And be careful when selecting reviewers.  

Consider the latest copyright date. Although a recent copyright date does not guarantee relevance or sensitivity, the year a book was published can be a clue as to the content’s ageist, racist or sexist concepts, illustrations or terms.  

Look for and reject language and illustrations that may be ageist. Watch out for authors and reviewers who misuse words like eccentric, elderly, feisty, geezer, spry, spunky. Reject sexist language and adjectives that exclude or ridicule old women; generic use of the word ‘man’ is outmoded.

For an email attached list of some Pre K - Grade 6 – YP good books published within the current decade that are in print and or libraries’ collection(s), email pen136@dslextreme.com.  

+++  

The number of conferences concerned with aging and scheduled worldwide in the next few months is impressive. Here are a few of those being held in Canada and the U.S.:  

On May 13, a “Silver Economy Summit: An aging population will change how you do work...are you ready?” begins in Halifax. Also in May, the International Society for Gerontechnology holds its 7th World Conference, in Vancouver. In September, "Connecting Research & Education to Care in Seniors’ Mental Health” will be considered, in Halifax; October will see the 5th International Dementia Conference, in Penticton, and November, the 2nd Conference on Positive Aging, in Vancouver.  

Meanwhile, in the United States, the Florida Conference on Aging meets in August in Orlando. In September, there’s the 2010 International Conference on Aging in the Americas, in Austin; in November, the annual meeting of the Gerontological Society of America, New Orleans.  

Helen Rippier Wheeler can be reached at pen136@dslextreme.com  

No email attachments; use “Senior Power” for subject.  

Hundreds of Berkeleyans and visitors to town turned out in picture-perfect spring weather on Sunday, May 2, 2010 to attend two tours. 

At least 1,000 paying guests and volunteers thronged the Berkeley Architectural Heritage Association (BAHA) annual house tour featured 8 properties designed by Julia Morgan.  

The self-guided walking tour included chamber music, a magnificent mansion in the Claremont, the house of an early UC professor largely unchanged from its 1905 character, and a hidden gem of a wood timbered garage. 

Hundreds more went on the “Bringing Back the Natives” garden tour that extended throughout the East Bay and included several properties in Berkeley, from the San Pablo Avenue flatlands to the crest of the hills. 

Some managed to squeeze in parts of both tours, with the Natives excursion starting three hours before the BAHA tour. 

The latest polls indicate that if the mid-term elections were held today, Democrats would lose seats in Congress because of dissatisfaction about the economy, particularly high rates of unemployment. Over the next six months, what should the Obama Administration do to solve the jobs problem?  

For several months, the unemployment rate has lingered around ten percent. Sadly, the last report noted, “44.1 percent of unemployed persons were jobless for 27 weeks or more.” In addition to 15 million unemployed there are 9.1 million “involuntary part-time workers” plus another 1 million “discouraged workers, who have given up looking; in other words, 1 out of every six US workers that wants a full-time job does not have one. 

While most voters blame former President Bush for the collapse of the economy, President Obama has borne the brunt of anger over unemployment. Fortunately, there are many indications the economy is getting better. The GDP forecast is positive for the first quarter and the year. And widely watched economic indicators such as the Bloomberg Personal Finance Index and the TED spread are positive. But it’s unclear how quickly employment will follow. 

Recently, Vice President Biden predicted accelerated job growth, “Some time in the next couple of months we’re going to be creating between 250,000 jobs a month and 500,000 jobs a month.” And there are several indications of improving employment conditions. If true, this will indicate the US economy is beginning a U shaped recovery rather than the dreaded “inverted L” shape – a rapid descent following by a painfully slow employment rebound. 

President Obama’s January 27th State of the Union address emphasized job creation: “jobs must be our number-one focus in 2010, and that's why I'm calling for a new jobs bill tonight.” “I'm proposing that we take $30 billion of the money Wall Street banks have repaid and use it to help community banks give small businesses the credit they need to stay afloat… I'm also proposing a new small business tax credit -– one that will go to over one million small businesses who hire new workers or raise wages… While we're at it, let's also eliminate all capital gains taxes on small business investment, and provide a tax incentive for all large businesses and all small businesses to invest in new plants and equipment…” 

A recent SBA report observed, “Over the past 15 years, small businesses have accounted for about 65 percent of the private-sector net job creation.” 64 percent of the jobs lost in 2008 were due to cuts at small firms. 

Early in February, the White House gave Congress small-business-oriented job-creation initiatives. On February 26th, a House committee considered the $30 Billion community-bank proposal. Unfortunately, Republicans painted it as another “bail-out,” claiming lenders aren’t lending because they “are uncertain about the changing regulatory environment." Since then the proposal has languished in Congress. (Although, on April 16th, the Small Business Administration got an $80 million extension of its popular small business loan program.) In his April 27th town-hall Meeting in Ottumwa, Iowa President Obama said, “One of our proposals is to have some of [the repaid bailout] money used to help get small business loans out… this is really a top priority for our administration.” 

On April 18th, President Obama signed a $38 billion jobs bill with multiple job-creation provisions: “businesses that hire anyone who has been out of work for at least 60 days would be exempt from paying the 6.2% Social Security payroll tax on that employee through December… Employers would get an additional $1,000 credit for each new worker remaining on the job for a full year.”  

In his 2011 budget the President proposed to eliminate capital gains taxes for small businesses under common-sense conditions. 

There’s divided opinion about whether additional Federal action is necessary. While most observers believe a “credit crunch” is inhibiting banks from the small business lending essential for robust job-creation, some feel the general market recovery will resolve this problem. Writing in a recent KIPLINGER LETTER, economist Richard DeKaser predicts the end of the credit crunch: “Business access to bank loans is poised to improve as lenders get losses under control and upgrade their economic outlook.” 

Other observers disagree. They believe the Federal Government needs to pass a massive jobs bill. Economist Robert Reich calls for “At least another $300 billion in stimulus money... Some should go to the states and cities to restore cuts; some should be applied to the nation's crumbling infrastructure; a portion should go to direct hiring (a new WPA).” 

At this writing, it appears that the Obama Administration is about to score an impressive victory with the passage of meaningful financial reform. To solve the jobs problem the White House should seize on this momentum and cajole Congress to pass the $30 Billion community-bank initiative. 

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

So what does being stranded in the middle of the high Mexican desert have to do with Chrysler and cocaine? Well, it was a Chrysler that got Anne and me into the mess—a model aptly named Attitude (“all attitude,” as one of my kids would say). But there was no cocaine or other assorted drugs in the tiny town of Bondojito Huichapan Hidalgo, just a hardware store, a minuscule tienda, and, of course, a church.  

For most Americans, however, Mexico is all about drugs and violence, and it is hard not to think about our southern neighbor without conjuring up the vocabulary of the Apocalypse: “With deadly Persistence, Mexican Drug Cartels Get Their Way” screams the New York Times; “Mexico’s drug war stirs fear in the U.S.” warns the San Francisco Chronicle; “Obama eyes troops for Mexico drug war,” headlines the Financial Times. Since 2006, according to Aljazeera, 22,743 people have been victims of the conflict, vastly more than the U.S. and its allies have lost in the Iraq and Afghan wars. 

So if you are a couple of Gringos dead in the water in the middle of nowhere these things come into your mind, particularly when the tow truck has not arrived and it’s starting to get dark.  

But as I said, we didn’t encounter any drugs or gangs, just helpful locals (I think somewhat bemused by our situation), a friendly tow truck driver, a solicitous guy from Hertz, a difficult taxi driver, and a very sympathetic hotel staff. In fact, the whole time we were in Mexico we didn’t see a shoot out or any bodies, although the journalist we were staying with—Martha Mendoza, one of Associated Press’s aces—told us about a recent gunfight in Monterrey.  

Martha is currently writing about the status of the “war on drugs” that Richard Nixon declared back in 1971, and that governments all over Latin America are starting to abandon. As wars go, it has been an unmitigated calamity.  

“How much misery can a policy cause before it is acknowledged as a failure and reversed? The U.S. ‘war on drugs’ suggests there is no upper limit,” writes Financial Times columnist Clive Crook. “The country’s implacable blend of prohibition and punitive criminal justice is wrong headed in every way: immoral in principle, since it prosecutes victimless crimes, and in practice a disaster of remarkable proportions.” 

A recent report by the 17-member Latin American Commission on Drugs and Democracy, lead by three former heads of state, concluded, according to Wall Street Journal columnist Jose de Cordoba, that “US-style anti-drug strategy was putting the region’s fragile democratic institutions at risk and corrupting ‘judicial systems, governments, the political system and especially the police force.” 

It has also had virtually no effect on the movement of drugs. According to a Guardian (UK) investigation, more than 750 tons of cocaine is shipped from the Andes, a traffic that “has forced peasants off land, trigged gang wars and perverted state institutions.” As Col. Rene Sanabria, the head of Bolivia’s anti-narcotic police force, told the British newspaper, “The strategy of the U.S. here, in Colombia and Peru was to attack the raw material and it has not worked.” 

In the case of Colombia, the U.S. has poured $6 billion in mostly military aid into the country, plus poisoning almost 2.5 million acres of coca plants. Coco production is up by 16 percent. 

Member of the commission and former Brazilian President Fernando Henrique Cardoso said, “The available evidence indicates that the war on drugs is a failed war. We have to move from this approach to another,” and urged a rejection of the “U.S. prohibitionist policies.”  

A study by the Brookings Institute agrees, as does a study by Harvard economist Jeffrey Miron and endorsed by 500 economists. 

The Commission report has received widespread coverage in Latin America. “They’re saying enough is enough,” says John Walsh of the Andes and Drug Policy at the Washington Office on Latin America. “There’s a real drug war weariness in Latin America and its bad enough to feel like a policy had been imposed and its worse when the policy doesn’t work.” 

Mexico, for instance, has deployed an estimated 35,000 soldiers in 14 states, only to see drug-related deaths increase, and more and more municipalities fall under the influence of drug cartels. 

There is also growing anger that the body count in Mexico is a direct result of U.S. weapons dealers selling everything from automatic weapons and 50-caliber sniper rifles, to grenades and rocket launchers to south of the border gangs. According to a Congressional study, more than 90 percent of the guns used by Mexican drug gangs come from dealers in Arizona, New Mexico and Texas. 

In Arizona last year, the state appellate court dismissed a case against a gun dealer who had sold some 700 weapons to intermediaries for Mexican drug gang smugglers. Several of the guns were used to kill eight police officers in Culiacan, the capital of Sinaloa state. It is estimated that this southbound flow of firepower generates about $25 billion a year for U.S. gun dealers. 

The “collateral” damage from the “war on drugs” is not just to Mexico and the rest of Latin America. According to Miron’s study, more than 500,000 people are in prison for drug crimes in the U.S.—the overwhelming percentage of them for possession—more than the total number of prisoners for all crimes in Great Britain, Germany, Spain, France and Italy combined. 

Changing those laws, however, will require coming up against a powerful coalition of law enforcement agencies and the prison industry that cost taxpayers about $100 billion a year. 

A number of Latin American countries have begun pulling away from the U.S. approach. Last summer, Mexico eliminated jail time for small amounts of marijuana, cocaine, heroin, LSD and methamphetamine. Brazil, Colombia and Uruguay have also decriminalized possession of drugs for personal use, and Argentina’s Supreme Court ruled that criminalization of marijuana possession was unconstitutional.  

Ecuadorian President Rafael Correa pardoned some 2000 small-time drug couriers last year, telling the parliament, “They are single mothers or unemployed people who are desperate to feed their families.” 

The model everyone seems to be looking at these days is Portugal, which eliminated jail time for personal drug possession. A recent study on the decriminalization of drugs in that county found “While many drug addiction, usage, and associated pathologies continue to skyrocket in many European Union states, those problems—in virtually every relevant category—have been either contained or measurable improved with Portugal since 2001.” 

The Netherlands and Switzerland have also decriminalized possession.  

The Obama administration has taken a few tentative steps in the direction of redirecting the “war on drugs,” including lifting the ban on federal funding of needle exchange programs, and shifting some Latin American aid from the military to civilian law enforcement. But criminalization is still at the heart of the U.S. approach.  

A decade ago, the U.S. pressed the United Nations to adopt a “drug-free world” strategy, rather than focusing on addiction and treatment. The results have been a disaster. A European commission on the UN strategy concluded last year that this is “no evidence that the global drug problem was reduced” in the past 10 years, and “while the situation has improved in some of the richer countries…for others it has worsened, and for some it worsened sharply and substantially.” 

Kasia Malinowska-Sempruch, director of the global drug policy program at the Open Society Institute in Warsaw told the Guardian, “Thanks to the global ‘war on drugs’ over the past decade, close to two million people living in the former Soviet Union are infected with HIV, half a million U.S. citizens languish in prison for non-violent, drug related crimes, and billions of dollars are spent on destructive military actions in Colombia while the production of cocaine continues to rise.” 

There is no question that the war on drugs makes parts of Mexico and Latin America dangerous. But the majority of people in those countries go through their lives having nothing to do with drug gangs or shootouts. Indeed, the thing that strikes one most about Mexicans—besides their politeness and sense of humor—is their common sense. No, you don’t have to take off your shoes to get on an airplane, and when your artificial hip sets off the alarm bells, they don’t take 20 minutes to go over every inch of your body with metal detectors.  

So while being marooned in the desert with a badly designed Chrysler is not a lot of fun, it eventually sorts itself out. Our misguided “war on drugs” will be a steeper hill to climb. 

Part 2: “…go with the flow.”  

Eighty-three year old Lawrance J. Phillips rents a “studio” in a Berkeley Section 8 project. (HUD subsidizes low-income seniors’ and disabled persons’ rents via the Section 8 program.) Born and raised in Iowa, Larry had a year of college. He feels secure in the streets of his community “most of the time.”  

His hearing and eyesight “could be better,” and he takes several prescription meds and uses the Veterans Administration health service. Larry serves on the North Berkeley Senior Center Advisory Council. He would like to see trips scheduled by the Center to the new Catholic Cathedral in Oakland, the Fox Theater and whale watching, also an Italian class. 

Asked, whether he has ever attended a Berkeley Commission on Aging meeting, Larry replies, “No, what do they do?” He is a member of the Peace and Freedom Party. Before retirement, he worked for an insurance company. He uses the central public library. Avatar was “too juvenile for me!” History is his preferred subject, currently reading R.R.Tolkien’s The Legend of Sigurd and Gudrun. 

+++ 

Berkeley resident Ying Lee has been a Kaiser patient for many years. She has an advance health care directive. She does not attend senior centers, uses the YMCA gym. When asked if she smokes, her response suggested that she once did but “gave it up.” She takes one prescription med and never took estrogen. She experienced a recent fracture, and has begun calcium and Vitamin D. Her main health problems are “hearing, fading eyesight and arthritic fingers.” Two years ago she fainted twice while driving. Now without car, she uses buses but not taxi scrip.  

Seventy-eight year old Ying Lee is a former member of the Berkeley Public Library board of trustees, although she borrows books from the University library. Her family consists of 2 children and a grandchild. Before retirement 10 years ago, she was employed as Barbara Lee’s legislative director. When asked about current volunteer work, she mentioned her concern for “peace and social justice issues”.  

Ying Lee’s favorite TV programs are Bill Moyer, Frontline, Nova, POV, Boston Legal, and Justice. [“Justice: What's The Right Thing to Do?” is on PBS KRCB Channel 22, taught by Harvard Professor Michael Sandel. Euthanasia is among the “issues” he considers. The entire series is available on the web.] 

+++ 

Avis Worthington is a well known Gray Panther; she edits and writes the Berkeley chapter’s newsletter. She is 78 years old and has been “going to Kaiser” for 30 years, with “a little time off when…got divorced.” Yes, she has an advance health care directive. Her main problem is eyesight— macular degeneration, with cataract surgery in the offing. Still, she identified arthritis as her main health problem. When I asked about what she would do if she were alone and fell, she acknowledged that would be a problem. She recognizes the considerable difference between a rental that is ‘low income housing’ and one that is considered “affordable housing.”  

She’s from Wisconsin. Earned her B.A. degree in art history at the University of Illinois and M.A. in writing at San Francisco State. Avis drives her own car, but does not have a disabled person’s placard. My question prompted her intention to look into it! [It’s free. The application form is at http://www.dmv.ca.gov/forms/reg/reg195.pdf ] 

Not surprising that she uses a Mac-- pre-retirement she was a writer. She attends the North Berkeley Senior Center and is an AARP and Wellstone Democrats member. She doesn’t use the public library, preferring to buy books and donate them. Her favorite TV programs are Monk and CSpan. 

+++ 

Through thick and thin, 83-year old Jocelyn Ferguson is ready, willing and able, although getting her to discuss herself wasn’t easy. Joy was born in Trinidad and has completed university-level education. Before retirement, she was employed as a travel agent. When asked how ‘your’ senior center may have changed, her response was so Joy: “It offers a wide selection of Trips, Classes and Programs. There have been some changes with New Management, but this is bound to happen – there are changes every day in normal living, and we must be able to go with the flow.”  

For years, Joy has been caring for the flower beds in front of the North Berkeley Senior Center as well as tending her personal Strawberry Creek Lodge garden patch. She innovated, and is responsible for, the Center’s Friday after-lunch opera video series. She is a Gray Panther who prefers mystery novels -- currently reading Lynda LaPlante’s Above Suspicion -- and publications about opera. Movies that are “oldies,” like Turner Classics, appeal to her. She enjoys Hallmark and BBC Chanel 4 News. She has a pc and email.  

Not as “active as I used to be, and don’t attend many meetings anymore.”  

Joy’s main health problems are hypertension and asthma (she does not smoke). Hearing and eyesight are both good; arthritis is treated with aspirin and Icy Hot. She uses the Over 60 Health Center and does not have a power of attorney or advance health care directive. She is “not sure” of the difference between a nursing home and assisted living and was unaware of the Elmwood Nursing Home scandal in the news in March.  

Lucky Joy’s response is “Don’t have one,” when asked what is or has been her main housing problem, and she feels secure in her community. She lives alone in a Section 8 unit, and has family nearby. She screens incoming phone calls “most of the time.” Asked about her main transportation problem, again: “Don’t have one.” Joy manages her transportation with a formulation of automobile, taxi scrip, and bus. 

+ + + 

For your consideration:  

If you are eligible for a Disabled Person Placard, note that “When parking, hang the placard from the rear view mirror. REMOVE IT WHEN DRIVING.”  

CALL TO CONFIRM these May 2010 meetings of interest to senior citizens: 

When: Tuesday, May 4. Noon-1 PM 

What: Brown Bag meeting on public policy issues.  

Where: 1247 Marin Av., Albany branch, Alameda County library, Edith Stone Room  

Details: League of Women Voters-sponsored. Public is invited 

For more information: Ronnie Davis (510) 526-3720 x16 rdavis@aclibrary.org  

When: Wednesday, May 5. 

What: CINCO DE MAYO special lunch. Reserve by May 3. ($8.00) 

Where: Emeryville Senior Center, 4321 Salem St.  

Details: Emeryville Senior Center programs, facilities, and services are for adults 50 years old+ who have completed a free membership application. 

For more info: (510) 596-3730.  

When: Wednesdays, May 5, 12, 19, 26. Noon-1 PM  

What: Play Readers at Central  

Where: Berkeley Public Library, 2090 Kittredge. 4th floor Story Room 

Details: Adults read aloud from great plays, changing parts frequently.  

For more info: (510) 981-6241 

When: Wednesday, May 5. 6-8 P.M. 

What: Lawyer in the Library.  

Where: 1247 Marin Av., Albany branch, Alameda County library 

Details: Free 15 minute consultation with an attorney. Advance registration required;  

For more information: Sign up at the Reference desk or call (510) 526-3720 ext. 5. 

When: Thursday, May 6. 1:30-3 P.M.  

What: “Seniors: Making Daily Activities Easier”  

Where: Albany Library, 1247 Marin AV.  

Details: Alameda County Library’s Karen Marshall demonstrates and discusses “Simple and Easy Gadgets & Other Devices.” Free. Refreshments.  

For more information: (510)745-1499, 526-3720. seniors@aclibrary.org 

When: Thursdays, May 6, 13,20, 27. 10-11 A.M. 

What: Computers for Beginners at Central 

Where: Berkeley Public Library, 2090 Kittredge  

Details: Free, drop-in-classes - Self-Paced. Learn how to use the mouse and the keyboard, set up e-mail, and search the internet.  

For more information: (510) 981-6148 

When: Tuesday, May 11. 7-9 P.M. 

What: Second Tuesdays Poetry Reading and Open Mic 

Where: 1247 Marin Av., Albany Branch, Alameda County Library. 

Details: Free.  

For more info: Vivian Jaquette (510) 526-3720 x20. vjaquette@aclibrary.org  

When: Saturday, May 15. 11am – 12 noon 

What: Landlord/Tenant Counseling at Central 

Where: Berkeley Public Library, 2090 Kittredge. 2nd Floor - Berkeley History Room  

Details:Berkeley Rent Board housing counselors offer free, one-on-one counseling  

When: Wednesday, May 26. 1:30 PM – 2:30 PM 

What: Great Books Discussion: Frankenstein by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley. 

Where: 1247 Marin Av., Albany Branch, Alameda County Library. 

Details: Lively discussion of selected Great Books, led by Rosalie Gonzales.  

For more information: Ronnie Davis (510) 526-3720 x16 davis@aclibrary.org  

When: Thursday, May 27. 12:30-3 P.M. 

What: Older Americans Month High Tea. Entertainment.  

Where: Albany Senior Center, 846 Masonic Av.  

Details: $4.00 per person includes light lunch and tea. Reserve a table.  

For more information: (510) 524-9122  

Helen Rippier Wheeler can be reached at pen136@dslextreme.com  

No email attachments; use “Senior Power” for subject. 

Kaua’i is an extraordinary place to see seabirds. Kilauea National Wildlife Refuge on the North Shore hosts nesting Laysan albatrosses, red-footed boobies, and wedge-tailed shearwaters. The boobies occupy a wooded slope above the ocean; we watched them bringing in twigs as nesting material. The albatrosses, mostly unpaired adolescents and supersized chicks, use a nearby hill. Almost literally underfoot, the shearwaters had excavated burrows right at the edge of a paved path. Great frigatebirds, long-winged piratical creatures, nest elsewhere but come to Kilauea to steal fish from the hapless boobies. 

With all that, I’d have to say that our most memorable seabird encounters involved tropicbirds. Two species breed in the Hawai’ian Islands, the white-tailed (koa’e kea in Hawai’ian) and the red-tailed (koa’e ‘ula). Tropicbirds are sleek, long-winged birds, somewhat like terns in appearance except for the pair of elongated feathers that extend from their tails. As you would expect, these streamers are red in the red-tailed tropicbird and usually white in the white-tailed, although we saw one individual white-tail with salmon-pink streamers. The red-tail’s feathers were used in traditional Hawai’ian regalia. 

Although we saw red-tails only at Kilauea, we ran into at least a white-tailed tropicbird or two almost every day: in Waimea Canyon, near Poi’pu on the South Shore, at Wailua and ‘Opaeka’a falls on the east side. We watched them gliding above W. S. Merwin’s folding cliffs in the Kalalau Valley, in and out of the constantly moving fog. When a stray sunbeam hit them, their white plumage lit up. 

Tropicbirds have traditionally been assigned to the order of birds that includes pelicans, cormorants, anhingas, gannets, boobies, and frigatebirds, with which they share totipalmate feet: all four toes connected by webbing. But a major phylogenetic study in 2008 grouped them in a lineage that included pigeons and doves, sandgrouse, grebes, and flamingos. Their fossil record is sparse, although 50-million-year-old remains in England have been attributed to a tropicbird or close relative. 

Superbly adapted for flight, tropicbirds have small, weak legs and feet that are barely adequate for terra firma. “When they move short distances, they shuffle forward by pushing with both feet and falling forward on their bellies,” writes Craig Harrison in Seabirds of Hawaii: Natural History and Conservation. They don’t swim well either. But in flight they’re grace incarnate, turning and twisting to capture flyingfish, squid, mackerel scad, and sauries, or to evade a pursuing frigatebird. Red-tailed tropicbirds can pick off flyingfish on the wing. 

Tropicbird courtship is aerobatic. We did not get to see the courtship flight of the white-tailed tropicbird, in which a pair glides in tandem, the male’s tail streamers touching the female’s back. However, we caught the red-tails’ performance at the Kilauea refuge: a half-dozen birds facing into the wind and back-pedaling so as to leapfrog their neighbors. This is accompanied by the strident vocalizations that led sailors to call them bosun birds, for the sound of the boatswain’s whistle. 

The two species have different nesting habitat preferences. Red-tails lay their single egg under concealing vegetation on flat clifftops overlooking the sea. White-tails use crevices in inland canyons, often near waterfalls. Twice we watched a white-tail spiral down toward a cliff face and suddenly disappear into an undetectable cavity in the rock wall. These birds also nest on the rims of the still-active craters of the other Kilauea on the Big Island, about as predator-proof a site as you can imagine. 

Both sexes incubate the single egg. Depending on site availability, red-tails can be loosely colonial, but they are far from neighborly. 

Harrison says they have vicious tempers. Nestlings are sometimes killed during territorial battles between adjacent pairs. White-tail 

nests are more dispersed, and much harder for biologists to reach. 

A cultural sidebar: the annual Merrie Monarch hula competition took place at Hilo on the Big Island while we were on Kaua’i. (The monarch in question: King David Kalakaua, who helped rehabilitate the hula after its suppression by missionaries.) The winning group this year, Ke Kai O Kahiki, performed a tropicbird-inspired routine including a jumping move called kenapulu that evoked the birds’ diving maneuvers. You can see it on YouTube. 

They did not, however, try to imitate the backward-circling dance of the red-tailed tropicbird. That’s something I would happily pay to see.  

Spring showers will give way to local, native, wildflowers this weekend as a number of local homeowners invite the public into their gardens. 

This Sunday is the 6th Annual Bringing Back the Natives Garden Tour, featuring several Berkeley and Berkeley-area gardens. 

The focus of the free tour is, as the name implies, growing California native species in the home garden. The gardens typically range from those of native purists—who don’t water, and exclude all introduced species—to gardens where native and drought-tolerant species predominate but also harmonize with other plantings. 

Some are designed by professionals, others homemade and homegrown. They range from a few hundred square feet in the flatlands to extensive and complex properties in the Berkeley hills.  

Berkeley sites include the Fleming Garden on Shasta Road, where the owners began gardening with natives in the 1950s and have created a spectacular hillside native enclave above an artificial stream, and swimming pool.  

The tour brochure describes it as “the leading native plant garden in private ownership in California” and, having visited before, I can tell you it’s a sight to see. There’s a front yard grove of native trees with a shady wall covered with native ferns; around the back of the house a switchback path climbs an artfully gardened slope into the sun and Bay views. 

The garden of Glen Schneider on California Street is also a tour regular. It’s intended to be “reminiscent of what the Berkeley flats might have looked like prior to the arrival of Europeans” and is planted with only native species gathered by seed or cutting within three miles of the garden. 

There are 12 gardens open in Berkeley, Albany, El Cerrito, and the southern tip of Richmond for this tour, and several in Oakland and Alameda, plus others further afield over the hills, from Pinole to Livermore to Martinez and Moraga. Four of the Berkeley gardens are listed as new to the tour since last year. 

A number of public gardens, school gardens, research gardens, and native plant nurseries will also be featured on the tour. They include the ever-fascinating California Native Bee Garden (on the University of California’s Oxford Tract, just northwest of the campus), the Alameda Butterfly Habitat in a schoolyard, and the Native Here Nursery in Berkeley. 

Native Here—at 101 Gold Course Links Road in Tilden Park—will also be open on Saturday for special sales. East Bay Wilds nursery in Berkeley will be selling plants on Sunday. 

The tour runs from 10 am to 5 pm on Sunday, May 2. Children are allowed but must be “closely supervised”. Pets are not allowed. 

It’s too late to order a tour brochure on line, but you can register in person on the morning of the tour and pick one up. You need a brochure to get the tour maps, detailed printed garden descriptions and locations, and tear-out tokens for admission. 

The gardens are also extensively described, with some pictures, on the Bringing Back the Natives website, so you can take a look in advance for the ones that might be of most interest. 

The Berkeley “walk-in” registration site is 1344 Carlotta Street—which is also one of the open gardens. But don’t go there before 10 am on Sunday. The website also lists nine other scattered registration gardens. 

The tour is free—funded by government agency and private grants and donations--but this year the organizers have included a prominent appeal in the brochure asking attendees to consider voluntarily donating $10 minimum per person (for the whole tour, not each garden). There will be donation jars at the open gardens. 

See bringingbackthenatives.net for more tour details. 

Note: this tour always seems to conflict with the annual Berkeley Architectural Heritage Association (BAHA) House Tour which this year also takes place on Sunday the 2nd. I’m going to the House Tour which is in the afternoon and features nine spectacular Julia Morgan homes. However, I’ve learned from experience of past years that it’s possible to visit at least two or three of the local native gardens starting at 10:00 am and still get to the BAHA Tour in plenty of time. Both events can be enjoyed. 

Steven Finacom is on the Board of the Berkeley Architectural Heritage Association, and has written for the Planet about numerous community, garden, and historic events.) 

BERKELEY ART MUSEUM AND PACIFIC FILM ARCHIVE  

"Soul's Light," May 9, 3 p.m. Program features works by Rossi, Barber, Whitacre and others. $8. (415) 331-5544. 

2626 Bancroft Way, Berkeley. < 

FIRST CONGREGATIONAL CHURCH OF BERKELEY  

"Spring Concert and Silent Auction," May 8, 6:30 p.m. Program features works by Ralph Vaughn Williams, Edvard Grieg, Charles Griffes, Igor Stravinsky and Aaron Coplan. $12-$15. (510) 849-9776, www.ypsomusic.net. 

"Rockin' Robin," May 9, 3-5 p.m. San Francisco Chamber Orchestra presents the world premiere of a new violin concerto by Composer in Residence Gabriela Frank. Free. (415) 248-1640, www.sfchamberorchestra.org. 

"Volti Concert: Nocturnes," May 14, 8 p.m. Program features works by Morten Lauridsen, Robin Estrada, Ted Hearne and Donald Crockett. $20-$30.  

2345 Channing Way, Berkeley. (510) 848-3696, www.fccb.org.< 

FIRST COVENANT CHURCH OF OAKLAND  

"New Day for Children," May 16, 3:30 p.m. Featuring Tiskela Celtic Harp Trio, Bay Area Youth Harp Ensemble, Bay Area Children's Harp Ensemble, Patten University Symphonette, Gero Nimu Band and the Chronicles. $10.  

4000 Redwood Road, Oakland. (510) 531-5244, www.oaklandfcc.org.< 

HERTZ HALL AT THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, BERKELEY  

"57th Annual Noon Concert Series," Noon.  

University Symphony Orchestra, May 7 through May 8, 8 p.m. David Mines conducts a program featuring works by Schumann and Shostakovich. $5-$15. (510) 642-9988. 

Bancroft Way and College Ave., Berkeley. (510) 642-4864, www.music.berkeley.edu.< 

LAFAYETTE-ORINDA PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH  

"Go Lovely Rose," May 16, 3 p.m. Program features works by Benjamin Britten, Morten Lauridsen, Eric Whitacre, Daniel Forrest, Eric Barnum and the premiere of Bay Area composer Stephen Richards' "Three Madrigals.'' $10-$25. (510) 836-0789. 

49 Knox Drive, Lafayette. < 

LAKE MERRITT UNITED METHODIST CHURCH  

Community Women's Orchestra, May 15, 4 p.m. Program features works by Hilary Tann, Fanny Mendelssohn Hansel, Gwyneth Walker and Dame Ethel Smyth. $5-$10.  

1330 Lakeshore Ave., Oakland. < 

LESHER CENTER FOR THE ARTS  

"Music That Dances," May 9, 2 p.m. Program features works by Abondolo, Offenbach, Dvorak, Bartok and Martinu. $16-$20.  

Diablo Symphony, May 16, 2 p.m. Program features works by Sibelius, Barber and Dvorak. $12-$20.  

1601 Civic Drive, Walnut Creek. (925) 943-7469, www.lesherartscenter.com.< 

LOS MEDANOS COLLEGE  

"Music That Dances," May 8, 7:30 p.m. Program features works by Gianna Abondolo, Jacques Offenbach, Antonin Dvorak, Bela Bartok and Bohuslav Martinu. $5-$10.  

2700 E. Leland Rd., Pittsburg. < 

NORTHBRAE COMMUNITY CHURCH  

"Rachmaninoff, Liturgy of St. John Chrysostom and Bartok, Hungarian Folk Songs," May 16, 4 p.m. Program features Rachmaninoff's "Liturgy of St. John Chrysostom'' and Bartok's "Slovak Folk Songs.'' $12-$15.  

941 The Alameda, Berkeley. < 

PARAMOUNT THEATRE  

Oakland East Bay Symphony, May 14 and May 16, Friday, 8 p.m.; Sunday, 2 p.m. Program features Beethoven's Ninth Symphony and Jake Heggie's "The Deepest Desire: Four Meditations on Love.'' $20-$65. (510) 444-0801, www.oebs.org. 

2025 Broadway, Oakland. (510) 465-6400, (415) 421-8497, www.paramounttheatre.com or www.ticketmaster.com.< 

ST. DAVID OF WALES CHURCH  

"'The Spanish Bach' Music of Antonio de Cabazon and His Age," May 7, 11 a.m. Program features works by Cabezon, Hans Buchner, William Byrd, J.P. Sweelinck and Cabezon-Despre. Free.  

5641 Esmond Ave., Richmon. < 

ST. JOSEPH THE WORKER CHURCH  

"J.S. Bach in B Minor," May 9, 4:30 p.m. Program features performes Elspeth Franks (soprano), Sonia Gariaeff (alto), Brian Thorsett (tenor) and Hugh M. Davis (baritone).  

1640 Addison St., Berkeley. (510) 843-2730, www.stjtwc.org.< 

ST. MARK'S EPISCOPAL CHURCH OF BERKELEY  

"Sacred and Profane Presents Madness and Mirth," May 7, 8 p.m. Program features works by Benjamin Britten, Per Norgard, Geoffredi Petrassi and William Bergsma. $15-$20. (415) 388-5899, www.scrdprofane.org. 

2300 Bancroft Way, Berkeley. (510) 848-5107, www.stmarksberkeley.org/.< 

TRINITY CHAMBER CONCERTS  

Suzanne Macahilig, May 8, 8 p.m. The pianist performs works by Beethoven, Mendelssohn and Chopin. $8-$12.  

ChamberBridge, May 15, 8 p.m. Program features works by Gabriela Lena Frank and a work written for ChamberBridge by Christian Henking. $8-$12.  

$12 general; $8 seniors, disabled persons and students. Trinity Chapel, 2320 Dana St., Berkeley. (510) 549-3864, www.trinitychamberconcerts.com.<

924 GILMAN ST. -- All ages welcome. 

Merauder, Crucified, Ruckus, Rule of Thumb, Grace Alley, Foreign Nature, May 7, 7:30 p.m.  

Sonic Boom Six, Knock Out, Dan Potthast, Los Arambula, IV, May 8, 7 p.m. $8.  

DCOI, Bum City Saints, Short Attn Span, Side Effects, Holiday Bowl, Public Suicide, May 14, 7:30 p.m. $7.  

$5 unless otherwise noted. Shows start Friday and Saturday, 8 p.m.; Sunday, 5 p.m. unless otherwise noted. 924 Gilman St., Berkeley. (510) 525-9926, www.924gilman.org.< 

ALAMEDA COUNTY COMMUNITY FOOD BANK  

Los Mapaches, May 8, 7 p.m. $5-$15.  

"Singer/Songwriter Performance Showcase," May 9, 6 p.m. $10.  

7900 Edgewater Dr., Oakland. (510) 635-3663, www.accfb.org.< 

ALBATROSS PUB  

Whiskey Brothers, First and third Wednesdays, 9 p.m. Free.  

Blind Duck Irish Band, May 12, 9-11 p.m. Free.  

Fred Randolph Jazz Trio, May 15, 9:30 p.m.-12:30 a.m. $3.  

Free unless otherwise noted. Shows begin Wednesday, 9 p.m.; Saturday, 9:30 p.m. unless otherwise noted. 1822 San Pablo Ave., Berkeley. (510) 843-2473, www.albatrosspub.com.< 

ARMANDO'S  

Kevin Ambrogi, Bryan Girard, Chris Robinson, Andy Dillard, May 7, 8-11 p.m. $10.  

Offshore, May 7, 8 p.m. $10.  

Tip of the Top, May 8, 8 p.m. $10.  

Blues Jam, May 10, 7 p.m. $3.  

"West Coast Songwriters Assn. Songwriters Competition," May 12, 7 p.m. $5.  

Mark Holzinger Quartet, May 13, 8 p.m. $8.  

Seth Augustus Band, May 14, 8 p.m. $10.  

Kally Price and Her Old Time Blues and Jazz Band, May 15, 8 p.m. $10.  

707 Marina Vista Ave., Martinez. (925) 228-6985, www.armandosmartinez.com.< 

ASHKENAZ  

Moonalice, May 7, 9:30 P.M. $10-$12.  

Pato Banton, May 9, 9 p.m. $10-$15.  

Black Sea Surf, May 12, 8:30 p.m. $10.  

DUSU and Mama Crow and Saratone, Band of Mystics, May 13, 8:30 p.m. $8-$10.  

Sara Ayala and Students, May 16, 7:30 p.m. $10.  

1317 San Pablo Ave., Berkeley. (510) 525-5054, www.ashkenaz.com.< 

BECKETT'S IRISH PUB  

Green Machine, May 7.  

Dane Drewis, May 8.  

Fun with Finnoula, May 12.  

Blue Diamond Fillups, May 14.  

DigiiN, May 15.  

Free. Shows at 10 p.m. unless otherwise noted. 2271 Shattuck Ave., Berkeley. (510) 647-1790, www.beckettsirishpub.com.< 

BERKELEY FELLOWSHIP OF UNITARIAN UNIVERSALIST HALL  

"Blues for Social Justice," May 15, 8 p.m. Featuring Voodoo Junk $10-$75.  

1924 Cedar St., Berkeley. (510) 495-5132, www.bfuu.org.< 

BLAKE'S ON TELEGRAPH  

Memorials, Club Crasherz, May 7, 9 p.m. $11.  

Stomacher, Early Stages, Viacoma, May 8, 9 p.m. $10-$12.  

Wonderland PD, Waves of Perception, Chanel the Suns, May 16, 7 p.m. $8.  

For ages 18 and older. Music begins at 9:30 p.m. unless otherwise noted. 2367 Telegraph Ave., Berkeley. (510) 848-0886, www.blakesontelegraph.com.< 

FIRST UNITARIAN CHURCH OF OAKLAND  

Cinyakare and the KTO Project, May 14, 8 p.m. $5-$18.  

685 14th St., Oakland. (510) 893-7056, www.uuoakland.org.< 

FOX THEATER  

Mastodon, Between the Buried and Me, High on Fire, Baroness, Priestess, May 8, 4 p.m. $35.  

Thirty Seconds to Mars, MuteMath, Neon Trees, May 13, 7:30 p.m. $29.50.  

1807 Telegraph Ave., Oakland. (510) 452-0438.< 

FREIGHT AND SALVAGE  

"Freight Open Mic," Tuesdays. $4.50-$5.50.  

Montclair Women's Big Band, May 7. $18.50-$19.50.  

George Cole Quintet, May 8. $18.50-$19.50.  

Bob Mielke and the New Bearcats, May 9. $18.50-$19.50.  

Fishtank Ensemble, May 12. $18.50-$19.50.  

Charlie Hunter Trio, May 13. $24.50-$25.50.  

Jimmy Webb, May 14. $30.50-$31.50.  

Lost Weekend, May 15. $18.50-$19.50.  

Jody Stecher & Kate Brislin, Canote Brothers, May 16. $14.50-$15.50.  

Music starts at 8 p.m. unless otherwise noted. 2020 Addison St., Berkeley. (510) 548-1761, www.freightandsalvage.org.< 

JAZZSCHOOL  

Lisa Engelken, May 7, 8 p.m. $15.  

Grant Milliken/Harrison Reinisch Group, May 8, 8 p.m. $10.  

Arts and Sciences, May 9, 4:30 p.m. $15.  

UC Berkeley Jazz and Improvised Music Ensemble, May 14, 8 p.m. $15.  

"First Annual Jazzschool High School Invitational," May 15 through May 16, Saturday, 7:30 p.m.; Sunday, 4:30 p.m. $5.  

Friday and Saturday, 8 p.m.; Sunday, 4:30 p.m. unless otherwise noted. 2087 Addison St., Berkeley. (510) 845-5373, www.jazzschool.com.< 

JUPITER  

"Americana Unplugged," Sundays, 5 p.m. A weekly bluegrass and Americana series.  

"Jazzschool Tuesdays," Tuesdays, 8 p.m. Featuring the ensembles from the Berkeley Jazzschool. www.jazzschool.com. 

8 p.m. 2181 Shattuck Ave., Berkeley. (510) 843-8277, www.jupiterbeer.com.< 

KIMBALL'S CARNIVAL  

"Monday Blues Legends Night," 8 p.m.-midnight. Enjoy live blues music every Monday night. Presented by the Bay Area Blues Society and Lothario Lotho Company. $5 donation. (510) 836-2227, www.bayareabluessociety.net. 

522 2nd St., Jack London Square, Oakland. < 

LA PENA CULTURAL CENTER  

Anna Estrada and Almasferas, May 7, 8 p.m. $12-$14.  

Los Mapaches, May 8, 7 p.m. $5-$15.  

"Singer/Songwriter Performance Showcase," May 9, 6 p.m. $10.  

"A Benefit for the View Finders," May 13, 8 p.m. Featuring Irie 924, Upwords Movement and Ajuanna Black. $25-$30.  

3105 Shattuck Ave., Berkeley. (510) 849-2568, www.lapena.org.< 

PARAMOUNT THEATRE  

Kevin Hart, May 15, 8 p.m. $29.50-$39.50.  

2025 Broadway, Oakland. (510) 465-6400, (415) 421-8497, www.paramounttheatre.com or www.ticketmaster.com.< 

SHATTUCK DOWN LOW  

"It's the Joint," Thursdays, 9:30 p.m. Featuring DJs Headnodic, Raashan Ahmad and Friends. $5.  

"King of Kings," Doors 10 p.m. $6-$8.  

"Live Salsa," Wednesdays. An evening of dancing to the music of a live salsa band. Salsa dance lesson from 8:30-9:30 p.m. $5-$10.  

"Thirsty Thursdays," Thursday, 9 p.m. Featuring DJ Vickity Slick and Franky Fresh. Free.  

For ages 21 and older. 2284 Shattuck Ave., Berkeley. (510) 548-1159, www.shattuckdownlow.com.< 

STARRY PLOUGH PUB  

The Starry Irish Music Session led by Shay Black, Sundays, 8 p.m. Sliding scale.  

For ages 21 and over unless otherwise noted. Sunday and Wednesday, 8 p.m.; Thursday-Saturday, 9:30 p.m. unless otherwise noted. 3101 Shattuck Ave., Berkeley. (510) 841-2082, www.starryploughpub.com.< 

UPTOWN NIGHTCLUB  

Mumlers, Touch-Me-Nots, DJ Mitch and Clark, May 7.  

Hot Tub, Isis G, May 8, 9 p.m. $10.  

Oakland Active Orchestra, May 11, 9 p.m.  

Audio Whore, DJ Jen Schande, Zola, May 13, 9 p.m.  

Bitter Honeys, Aerosols, Joel Robinow vs. Black Water, Water DJ Sean Sullivan, May 14, 9 p.m. $8.  

Hella Gay, May 15, 9 p.m. $7.  

1928 Telegraph Ave., Oakland. (510) 451-8100, www.uptownnightclub.com.< 

YOSHI'S  

Christian McBride & Inside Straight, through May 7, 8 and 10 p.m. $12-$20.  

Carlos Varela, May 8 through May 9, Saturday, 8 and 10 p.m.; Sunday, 2 and 7 p.m. $22.  

Jazzschool Institute Vocal Performance Class, May 10, 8 p.m. $12.  

Stanley Clarke Band with Hiromi, May 11 through May 12, 8 and 10 p.m.  

$30.  

Chuchito Valdes, May 13, 8 p.m. $16.  

David Grisman Quintet plus special guest Mike Barnett, May 14 through May 16, Friday and Saturday 8 and 10 p.m.; Sunday, 2 and 7 p.m. $30.  

"For the Love of Mike: A Benefit for Mike Cogan," May 15, 1-4 p.m. Featuring Leon Oakley, John Santos, Clairdee, Ken French, Anton Schwartz, Wayne Wallace, Ed Reed, Lavay Smith, Joe Gilman and more. $20.  

Shows are Monday through Saturday, 8 and 10 p.m.; Sunday, 2 and 7 p.m., unless otherwise noted. 510 Embarcadero West, Oakland. (510) 238-9200, www.yoshis.com.< 

ZELLERBACH HALL AT THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, BERKELEY  

Laurie Anderson, May 7 through May 8, 8 p.m. $30-$56. www.calperformances.org. 

Sonny Rollins, May 13, 8 p.m. $34-$76.  

UC Berkeley campus, Bancroft Way and Telegraph Avenue, Berkeley. (510) 642-9988.<

CALVARY PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH  

"Dutch Princess Christina Concert," May 8, 2 p.m. Program features works by J.N. Hummel, E. Ysaye and F. Liszt. Free. (212) 825-1221. 

"Celebrating American Heroes," May 15 through May 16, Saturday, 8 p.m.; Sunday, 4 p.m. Program features Eric Davis "A Thanksgiving for Heroes.'' $15-$35.  

2515 Fillmore St., San Francisco. (415) 346-3832, www.calvarypresbyterian.org.< 

DANCE MISSION THEATER  

"New World Echoes," May 14, 8 p.m. Program features works by William Susman and Richard Warp. $12-$15.  

3316 24th St., San Francisco. (415) 826-4441, www.dancemission.com.< 

DAVIES SYMPHONY HALL  

"Beethoven's Piano Concerto No. 2," through May 8, Wednesday, 10 a.m. and 8 p.m.; Friday, 6:30 p.m.; Saturday, 8 p.m. Christoph Eschenbach conducts the San Francisco Symphony in a program that includes Beethoven, Larcher and Brahms. $15-$130.  

"Chamber Music Series," May 9, 2 p.m. Program features works by Nathaniel Stookey, Stravinsky, Prokofiev and Ravel. $35.  

"Gustavo Dudamel Conducts the Los Angeles Philharmonic," May 10, 8 p.m. Program features works by John Adams and Mahler. $30-$155.  

"Los Angeles Philharmonic with Jean-Yves Thibaudet," May 11, 8 p.m. Program features works by Bernstein and Tchaikovsky. $30-$155.  

"MTT and Garrick Ohlsson," May 13 and May 15, Thursday, 2 p.m.; Saturday, 8 p.m. Program features works by Litolff, Chopin, Adam and Debussy. $15-$130.  

"San Francisco Symphony Youth Orchestra Concert," May 16, 2 p.m. Program features works by John Adams, Vaughan Williams and Tchaikovsky. $12-$36.  

201 Van Ness Ave., San Francisco. (415) 864-6000, www.sfsymphony.org.< 

HERBST THEATRE  

"Sea to Shining Sea," May 8, 8 p.m. Program features works by Barber, Bolcom and Copland. $32-$54. (415) 357-1111. 

"Brandenburg Concertos," May 9, 3 p.m. Archetti String Ensemble performs these works by Bach, as well as works by Handel and Vivaldi. $32-$42. (415) 392-4400, www.cityboxoffice.com. 

Tokyo String Quartet, May 14, 8 p.m. Program features works by Haydn, Mozart and Beethoven. $32-$44.  

401 Van Ness Ave., San Francisco. (415) 392-4400, www.cityboxoffice.com.< 

RED VIC MOVIE HOUSE  

"Madama Butterfly," May 9, 2 p.m. San Francisco Opera presents a special Mother's Day screening of Puccini's opera.  

1727 Haight St., San Francisco. < 

SAN FRANCISCO CONSERVATORY OF MUSIC  

Eguene Brancoveneau and Peter Grunberg, May 16, 2 p.m. Program features works by Mahler and Vaughan Williams. $32.  

$15 to $20 unless otherwise noted. Hellman Hall, 50 Oak St., San Francisco. (415) 864-7326, www.sfcm.edu.< 

SAN FRANCISCO PARLOR OPERA  

"W.A. Mozart's Don Giovanni," May 8 and May 15, 7 p.m. SF Parlor Opera presen ts a modern day adaptation of Mozart's opera, set in New Orleans during Mardi Gras. $55. (415) 235-9178. 

1652 Hayes St., San Francisco. (425) 235-9178, www.sfparloropera.org.< 

SEVENTH AVENUE PERFORMANCES  

"The Armed Man -- Josquin Des Prez," May 15, 7:30 p.m. Presented by San Francisco Renaissance Voices. $15-$20.  

1329 7th Ave., San Francisco. (415) 664-2543, www.sevenperforms.org.< 

ST. FRANCIS LUTHERAN CHURCH  

"Sacred and Profane Presents Madness and Mirth," May 8, 8 p.m. Program features works by Benjamin Britten, Per Norgard, Geoffredi Petrassi and William Bergsma. $15-$20.  

152 Church St., San Francisco. (415) 621-2635.< 

ST. MARK'S LUTHERAN CHURCH  

"Volti Concert: Nocturnes," May 15, 8 p.m. Program features Morten Lauridsen, Robin Estrada, Ted Hearne, Donald Crockett. $20-$30. (415) 771-3352. 

1111 O'Farrell St., San Francisco. (415) 928-7770, www.stmarks-sf.org.<

CALIFORNIA STATE UNIVERSITY, EAST BAY (HAYWARD CAMPUS) --  

"Wayward,'' May 7 through May 16, May 7-8, 14-15, 8 p.m.; May 16, 2 p.m. Program features "Big Red,'' which leads audiences on a journey through and around the theater, and "Dan Pionsy's Bar Mitzvah," which will premiere and the Contemporary Jewish Museum of San Francisco in July. $10-$15.  

25800 Carlos Bee Blvd., Hayward. www.csueastbay.edu.< 

LESHER CENTER FOR THE ARTS  

"Company C Contemporary Ballet,'' May 14 through May 15, 8 p.m. Program features Artistic Director Charles Anderson's "Beautiful Maladies,'' an amorous exploration set to recording by Chet Backer, Twyla Tharp's arresting take on Euripdes, "Surfer at the River Styx'' and Val Caniparoli's buoyantly retro "Boink!" $18-$40. www.spreckelsonline.com. 

1601 Civic Drive, Walnut Creek. (925) 943-7469, www.lesherartscenter.com.<

A GREAT GOOD PLACE FOR BOOKS  

Katie Crouch, May 7, 7 p.m. The author talks about "Men and Dogs.''  

Kathi Goldmark and Sam Barry, May 8, 7 p.m. The authors talk about "Write That Book Already! The Tough Love You Need to Get Published Now.''  

BJ Gallagher, May 13, 7 p.m. The author talks about "It's Never Too Late to Be What You Might Have Been.''  

Kate Moses, May 14, 7 p.m. The author talks about "Cakewalk: A Memoir.''  

Phil Cousineau, May 16, 4 p.m. The author talks about "Wordcatcher: An Odyssey Into the World of Weird and Wonderful Words.''  

6120 LaSalle Ave., Oakland. (510) 339-8210, www.greatgoodplace.indiebound.com.< 

BOOKS INC., BERKELEY  

Suel D. Jones, May 7, 7 p.m. The author talks about "Meeting the Enemy: A Marine Goes Home.''  

Peter Schrag and Tyche Hendricks, May 10, 7 p.m. Schrag talks about "Not Fir for Society'' and Hendricks talk about "The Wind Doesn't Need a Passport.''  

1760 4th Street, Berkeley. (510) 525-7777, www.booksinc.net.< 

DIESEL, A BOOKSTORE  

Deborah Burnes, May 11, 7 p.m. The author talks about "Look Great, Live Green.''  

Greil Marcus, May 13, 7 p.m. The author talks about "When the Rough God Goes Riding.''  

Aife Murray, May 16, 3 p.m. The author talks about "Maid as Muse.''  

5433 College Avenue, Oakland. (510) 653-9965.< 

EASTWIND BOOKS  

Karen Tei Yamashita, May 8, 3 p.m. The author talks about "I Hotel.''  

2066 University Ave., Berkeley. (510) 548-2350.< 

KENSINGTON COMMUNITY CENTER  

"Annual Spring Booksale," May 8 through May 9, Saturday, 9 a.m.-4 p.m.; Sunday, 11 a.m.-4 p.m. Sale features CDs, DVDs, video and audio tapes, donated books and more.  

59 Arlington Blvd., Kensington. (510) 524-3043.< 

MOE'S BOOKS  

Roddy Doyle, May 7. The author talks about "The Dead Republic.''  

Joanne Kyger and Anne Valley-Fox, May 13. Poetry Flash presents the authors reading their new work.  

10 a.m.-11 p.m. daily. 2476 Telegraph Ave., Berkeley. (510) 849-2087, www.moesbooks.com.< 

MRS. DALLOWAY'S  

Matthew Crawford, May 13, 7:30 p.m. The author talks about "Shopclass as Soulcraft.''  

Christi Phillips, May 14, 7:30 p.m. The author talks about "The Devlin Diary.''  

Marcia Gagliardi, May 15, 4 p.m. The authors talk about "The Tablehoppers Guide to Dining and Drinking in San Francisco.''  

Mac Barnett and Eli Horowitz, May 16, 4 p.m. The authors talk about "The Clock Without a Face.''  

2904 College Avenue, Berkeley. (510) 704-8222.<

AURORA THEATRE COMPANY  

CLOSING -- "John Gabriel Borkman," by David Eldridge, through May 9, Tuesday, 7 p.m.; Wednesday-Saturday, 8 p.m.; Sunday, 2 and 7 p.m. After serving eight years in prison for embezzlement, Borkman plans a comeback. $15-$55.  

Aurora Theatre, 2081 Addison St., Berkeley. (510) 843-4822, www.auroratheatre.org.< 

BERKELEY REPERTORY THEATRE  

CLOSING -- "Girlfriend," by Todd Almond, through May 9, Tuesday, Thursday and Friday, 8 p.m.; Wednesday, 7 p.m.; Saturday, 2 and 8 p.m.; Sunday, 2 and 7 p.m. Boy meets boy in this dual-Romeo duet that's innocent -- and sweet. $27-$71.  

2025 Addison St., Berkeley. (510) 647-2949, (888) 4BR-Ttix, www.berkeleyrep.org.< 

DIABLO ACTORS ENSEMBLE THEATRE  

"Same Time Next Year," by Bernard Slade, through May 23, Thursday-Saturday, 8 p.m.; Sunday, 2 p.m. An accountant and a housewife meet at a Northern California inn once a year, despite the fact that they are both married to other people. $10-$25.  

1345 Locust Street, Walnut Creek. (925) 482-5110, www.diabloactors.com.< 

LA VAL'S SUBTERRANEAN THEATRE  

OPENING -- "Twelfth Night," by William Shakespeare, May 8 through June 12, Thursday-Saturday, 8 p.m. Impact Theatre presents this classic Shakespeare comedy. $10.  

1834 Euclid Ave., Berkeley. (510) 464-4468.< 

THE MARSH BERKELEY  

CLOSING -- "East 14: True Tales of a Reluctant Player,'' through May 8. "East 14th" chronicles the true tale of a young man raised by his mother and ultra-strict stepfather. $20-$35.  

OPENING -- "What Just Happened," by Nina Wise, May 7 through May 22, Friday, 9 p.m.; Saturday, 8 p.m. Wise presents an evening improvisation based on personal and political events which have transpired over the previous 24 hours. $20-$35.  

The Gaia Building, 2120 Allston Way, Berkeley. Info: (415) 826-5750, Tickets: (800) 838-3006, www.themarsh.org.< 

WILLOWS CABARET AT THE CAMPBELL THEATRE  

"You're a Good Man, Charlie Brown,'' through June 6. The Red Baron patrols the skies, the Doctor is in, and the "blankie" is in jeopardy again. $14-$32.  

636 Ward St., Martinez. (925) 798-1300, www.willowstheatre.org.<

AMES GALLERY  

"New Show," through June 30. Exhibition features drawings by Deborah Barrett, Ted Gordon, Dwight Mackintosh, Inez Nathaniel Walker, AG Rizzoli, Barry Simons and others.  

2661 Cedar St., Berkeley. (510) 845-4949, www.amesgallery.com.< 

BEDFORD GALLERY  

"Dutch Impressionism and Beyond," through June 27. Exhibition features selections from the Beekhuis Collection.  

$3 general; $2 youth ages 12 through 17; free children ages 12 and under; free Tuesdays. Tuesday, Wednesday, and Sunday, noon-5 p.m.; Thursday-Saturday, noon-5 p.m. and 6-8 p.m. Dean Lesher Regional Center for the Arts, 1601 Civic Drive, Walnut Creek. (925) 295-1417, www.bedfordgallery.org.< 

DENMAN STUDIOS  

CLOSING -- "Solo Art Exhibition 2010," through May 8. Exhibition features works by Andrew Denman.  

20 Parkway Court, Orinda. (925) 258-9342, www.andrewdenman.com.< 

FLOAT  

"Enigma," through June 12. Exhibition features works by James Barnes MacKinnon and Dave Meeker, as well as sonic textures and ambient grooves by dj fflood.  

Free. Tuesday-Saturday, 10 a.m.-10 p.m.; by appointment. 1091 Calcot Place, Unit 116, Oakland. (510) 535-1702, www.thefloatcenter.com.< 

HALL OF PIONEERS GALLERY  

"Oakland Chinatown Pioneers," Twelve showcases, each focusing on historic leaders and personalities of the community.  

Free. Monday-Friday, 10 a.m.-3 p.m. Chinese Garden Building, 275 Seventh St., Oakland. (510) 530-4590.< 

HEARST ART GALLERY AT SAINT MARY'S COLLEGE OF CALIFORNIA  

"Andy Warhol's Quick Pix and Pop Icons," through June 20. Exhibition features original Poloraid photographs from the Andy Warhol Foundation's Photographic Legacy Program.  

$3. Wednesday-Sunday, 11 a.m.-4:30 p.m. 1928 Saint Mary's Road, Moraga. (925) 631-4379, www.gallery.stmarys-ca.edu.< 

JOYCE GORDON GALLERY  

OPENING -- "Cross Roads," May 7 through June 28. Collaborative exhibition features works by Chukes and Ruth Tunstall Grant.  

Free. Wednesday-Friday, noon-7 p.m.; Saturday, noon-4 p.m.; Monday by appointment. 406 14th St., Oakland. www.joycegordongallery.com.< 

PHOTOLAB  

"Loud and Fast: 15 Years of Punk Rock Performances," through June 5. Exhibition features black and white photographs by Larry Wolfley.  

2235 5th St., Berkeley. (510) 644-1400, www.photolabratory.com.< 

SUN GALLERY  

CLOSING -- "The Wild, Wild West II," through May 15, Noon-6 p.m. Exhibition features works by Benny Alba, Larry Gipson, Celia Huddleston and many others.  

1015 E. St., Hayward. (510) 581-4050, www.sungallery.org.< 

TRAYWICK CONTEMPORARY  

"The Oblivion Before the Beginning," through June 26. Exhibition features works by Diana Guerrero-Macia.  

895 Colusa Ave., Berkeley. (510) 527-1214.<

BERKELEY PUBLIC LIBRARY, CENTRAL BRANCH  

OPENING -- "Bay Area Nature," through July 1. Exhibition features photography by Satoko Myodo-Garcia.  

Free. Monday-Tuesday, noon-8 p.m.; Wednesday-Saturday, 10 a.m.-6 p.m.; Sunday, 1-5 p.m. 2090 Kittredge St., Berkeley. (510) 981-6100, www.berkeleypubliclibrary.org/.< 

CARMEN FLORES RECREATION CENTER  

"El Corazon de la Communidad: The Heart of the Community", Painted by Joaquin Alejandro Newman, this mural installation consists of four 11-foot panels that mix ancient Meso-American and contemporary imagery to pay homage to local activists Carmen Flores and Josie de la Cruz.  

Free unless otherwise noted. Monday-Friday, 10 a.m.-7 p.m. 1637 Fruitvale Ave., Oakland. (510) 535-5631.< 

CHANDRA CERRITO CONTEMPORARY  

"Kagami," through May 15. Exhibition features works by Kana Tanaka.  

480 23rd St., Oakland. (415) 577-7537, www.chandracerrito.com.< 

COHN-STONE STUDIOS  

"Mothers Day Open Studios," May 7 through May 9. Event features tea in the art glass garden, glass blowing demonstrations, affordable art works and open studios.  

Free. 560 S. 31st St., Richmond. (510) 234-9690, www.cohnstone.com.< 

FRANK BETTE CENTER FOR THE ARTS  

OPENING -- "Les Femmes et Fleurs," May 7 through May 29. Exhiition explores themes of spring and the blossoming of women and flowers throughout their life cycles.  

Free. Wednesday and Friday-Sunday, 10:30 a.m.-5 p.m.; Thursday, 10:30 a.m.-9:30 p.m. 1601 Paru St., Alameda. (510) 523-6957, www.frankbettecenter.org.< 

JOHANSSON PROJECTS  

CLOSING -- "The Velveteen Order," through May 15. Exhibition features works by Keer Tanchak and Christina Corfield.  

Free. Thursday-Saturday, noon-6 p.m. 2300 Telegraph Ave., Oakland. (510) 444-9140, www.johanssonprojects.com.< 

LINDSAY WILDLIFE MUSEUM This is the oldest and largest wildlife rehabilitation center in America, taking in 6,000 injured and orphaned animals yearly and returning 40 percent of them to the wild. The museum offers a wide range of educational programs using non-releasable wild animals to teach children and adults respect for the balance of nature. The museum includes a state-of-the art wildlife hospital which features a permanent exhibit, titled "Living with Nature,'' which houses 75 non-releasable wild animals in learning environments; a 5,000-square-foot Wildlife Hospital complete with treatment rooms, intensive care, quarantine and laboratory facilities; a 1-acre Nature Garden featuring the region's native landscaping and wildlife; and an "Especially For Children'' exhibit.  

WILDLIFE HOSPITAL -- September-March: 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. The hospital is open daily including holidays to receive injured and orphaned animals. There is no charge for treatment of native wild animals and there are no public viewing areas in the hospital. 

EXHIBITS --  

SPECIAL EVENTS --  

$5-$7; free children under age 2. Wednesdays-Sundays, 10 a.m.-5 p.m. 1931 First Ave., Walnut Creek. (925) 935-1978, www.wildlife-museum.org.< 

MILLS COLLEGE  

"Between You and Me," through May 30. Mills College presents its 2010 MFA Exhibition.  

5000 Macarthur Blvd., Oakland. (510) 430-2296, www.mills.edu.< 

OAKLAND ASIAN CULTURAL CENTER  

"Oakland's 19th-Century San Pablo Avenue Chinatown," A permanent exhibit of new findings about the rediscovered Chinatown on San Pablo Avenue. The exhibit aims to inform visitors about the upcoming archaeological work planned to explore the lives of early Chinese pioneers in the 1860s.  

Free. Monday-Friday, 10 a.m.-5 p.m.; Saturday, 11 a.m.-4 p.m. Pacific Renaissance Plaza, 388 Ninth St., Suite 290, Oakland. (510) 637-0455, www.oacc.cc.< 

OAKLAND INTERNATIONAL AIRPORT  

"Going Away, Coming Home," A 160-foot public art installation by Mills College art professor Hung Liu. Liu hand painted 80 red-crowned cranes onto 65 panels of glass that were then fired, tempered and paired with background panes that depict views of a satellite photograph, ranging from the western United States to the Asia Pacific Area. Terminal 2.  

Free. Daily, 24 hours, unless otherwise noted. Oakland International Airport, 1 Airport Drive, Oakland. (510) 563-3300, www.flyoakland.com.< 

OAKLAND MARRIOTT CITY CENTER  

"Leroy Parker," through May 31. Exhibition features drawings, paintings and mixed media by the artist.  

1001 Broadway, Oakland. (510) 451-4000.< 

OAKLAND PUBLIC LIBRARY, DIMOND BRANCH  

"Priority Artists Exhibition," through May 29. Exhibition features works by a varied group of skilled creators, ranging in age from 30s to 70s, and made up of many of the diverse ethnic groups that reside in the Bay Area.  

Free. Tuesday, 12:30 p.m. to 8 p.m.; Wednesday, Thursday and Saturday, 10 a.m. to 5:30 p.m.; Friday, noon to 5:30 p.m. 3565 Fruitvale Ave., Oakland. (510) 482-7844, www.oaklandlibrary.org.< 

RICHMOND ART CENTER  

"Cream From the Top," through June 5. Exhibition features surfacing talent from fine arts programs at California College of the Arts, Mills College, San Francisco Art Institute, San Francisco State University, University of California, Berkeley and University of California, Davis.  

Free. Tuesday-Sunday, noon-5 p.m. 2540 Barrett Ave., Richmond. (510) 620-6772, www.therichmondartcenter.org.< 

WOMEN'S CANCER RESOURCE CENTER  

"Edible East Bay," through June 25. Exhibition featurse works by Zina Deretsky, Kieren Dutcher, Rosalie Z. Fanshel and more.  

5471 Telegraph Ave., Oakland. <

ELKS LODGE, ALAMEDA  

"All You Can Dance Sunday Socials," Sunday, 4-6 p.m. Marilyn Bowe and Robert Henneg presents monthly socials with ballroom, swing, Latin and rock & roll themes. www.dancewithme.info. 

2255 Santa Clara Ave., Alameda. (510) 864-2256.< 

LA PENA CULTURAL CENTER  

Bill Santiago, May 14, 8 p.m. Learn salsa, tango and other dance styles. $12-$14.  

3105 Shattuck Ave., Berkeley. (510) 849-2568, www.lapena.org.< 

SHATTUCK DOWN LOW  

"Live Salsa," Wednesdays. An evening of dancing to the music of a live salsa band. Salsa dance lesson from 8:30-9:30 p.m. $5-$10.  

For ages 21 and older. 2284 Shattuck Ave., Berkeley. (510) 548-1159, www.shattuckdownlow.com.< 

SOLAD DANCE CENTER  

"Persian Dance," Tuesday and Thursdays, 8:30 and 10 p.m. Rosa Rojas offers traditional dance classes. $10.  

Citrus Marketplace, 2260 Oak Grove Rd., Walnut Creek. (925) 938-3300.< 

STARRY PLOUGH PUB  

"Ceili and Dance," Traditional Irish music and dance. The evening begins with dance lesson at 7 p.m. followed by music at 9 p.m. Mondays, 7 p.m. Free.  

For ages 21 and over unless otherwise noted. Sunday and Wednesday, 8 p.m.; Thursday-Saturday, 9:30 p.m. unless otherwise noted. 3101 Shattuck Ave., Berkeley. (510) 841-2082, www.starryploughpub.com.<

AMERICAN CONSERVATORY THEATER  

"Round and Round the Garden," by Alan Ayckbourn, through May 23. Librarian Norman channels Casanova in his fervent attempts to seduce his two sisters in-law, as well as his estranged wife during a weekend family gathering.  

Geary Theater, 415 Geary St., San Francisco. (415) 749-2228, www.actsf. org.< 

BATS IMPROV THEATRE  

"BATS Improv," through May 29, Friday, 8 p.m. BATS presents themed improv theater nights. $17-$20.  

All shows at 8 p.m. unless otherwise noted. Bayfront Theatre, Building B, Third Floor, Fort Mason Center, Marina Boulevard and Buchanan Street, San Francisco. (415) 474-8935, www.improv.org.< 

CHANCELLOR HOTEL UNION SQUARE  

"Eccentrics of San Francisco's Barbary Coast," Friday and Saturday, 8 p.m. Audiences gather for a 90-minute show abounding with local anecdotes and lore presented by captivating and consummate conjurers and tale-tellers. $30.  

433 Powell St., San Francisco. (877) 784-6835, www.chancellorhotel.com.< 

CLIMATE THEATRE  

"The Clown Cabaret at the Climate," First Monday of the month, 7 and 9 p.m. Hailed as San Francisco's hottest ticket in clowning, this show blends rising stars with seasoned professionals on the Climate Theater's intimate stage. $10-$15.  

285 Ninth St., Second Floor, San Francisco. www.climatetheater.com.< 

COUNTERPULSE  

"Tender Stone," through May 16, 8 p.m. ARTSHIP Ensemble performs an original theater piece with an interpretive exhibition based on the nurturing wisdom of women storytellers of the Persian and Mogul empires. (800) 838-3006. 

1310 Mission St., San Francisco. (415) 626-2060, www.counterpulse.org.< 

CURRAN THEATRE  

"In the Heights," May 12 through June 13, Tuesday-Saturday, 8 p.m.; Wednesday, Saturday, Sunday, 2 p.m.; May 16, 7:30 p.m. Hear the story about the bonds that develop in a vibrant, tight-knit community at the top of the island of Manhattan. $30-$99.  

445 Geary St., San Francisco. (415) 512-7770, www.shnsf.com or www.bestofbroadway-sf.com.< 

EUREKA THEATRE  

"First in the Jerome Kern Celebration,'' through May 24, Wednesday, 7 p.m.; Thursday and Friday, 8 p.m.; Saturday, 6 p.m.; Sunday, 3 p.m. 42nd Street Moon presents a giddy romp that takes the old "barn musical" plot and turns it on its head. $38-$44.  

215 Jackson St., San Francisco. (415) 255-8207, (415) 978-2787, www.42ndstmoon.org/42newweb/finding/eureka.htm or www.ticketweb.com/.< 

THE JEWISH THEATER SAN FRANCISCO  

CLOSING -- "Andy Warhol: Good for the Jews?" by Josh Kornbluth, through May 16, Thursday-Saturday, 8 p.m.; Sunday, 2 and 7 p.m. This one-man performance examines the legacy of Andy Warhol and the ten Jewish luminaries he painted. $15-$45.  

470 Florida St., San Francisco. (415) 292-1233, www.tjt-sf.org.< 

THE MARSH  

"The Mock Cafe," Stand-up comedy performances. Saturday, 10 p.m. $7.  

"The Monday Night Marsh," An ongoing series of works-in-progress. Monday, 8 p.m. $7.  

EXTENDED -- "The Real Americans," by Dan Hoyle, through May 30, Thursday and Friday, 8 p.m.; Saturday, 5 p.m. Fleeing the liberal bubble of San Francisco and his hipster friends, Hoyle spent 100 days traveling through small-town America in search of some tough country wisdom and a way to bridge America's urban/rural divide. $15-$35.  

"Geezer," by Geoff Hoyle, through May 23, Friday, 8 p.m.; Saturday, 8:30 p.m.; Sunday, 8 p.m.; May 9, 8 p.m. Hoyle reminisces of his youth in England and young manhood in America. $20-$35.  

1062 Valencia St., San Francisco. (415) 826-5750, www.themarsh.org.< 

MISSION CULTURAL CENTER FOR LATINO ARTS  

"DIS-oriented,'' May 14, 8 p.m. Featuring "All Atheists Are Muslim,'' by Zahra Noorbakhsh, "Soft Tissue,'' by Colleen "Coke'' Nakamoto and "Fortunate Daughter" by Thao P. Nguyen. $15-$20.  

Gallery admission: $2. Gallery hours: Tuesday through Saturday, 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. 2868 Mission St., San Francisco. (415) 643-1115, www.missionculturalcenter.org.< 

NEW CONSERVATORY THEATRE CENTER  

"Proud and Bothered," May 13 through June 26, Thursday-Saturday, 8 p.m.; Sunday, 2 p.m. Gomez, a professional Gay Pride MC takes the walk of shame in this comedic tell-all. $22-$34.  

25 Van Ness Ave., San Francisco. (415) 861-8972, www.nctcsf.org.< 

NEXT STAGE THEATER  

CLOSING -- "The Diary of Anne Frank," by Wendy Kesselman, through May 9, Thursday-Saturday, 8 p.m.; Sunday, 7 p.m. Custom Made presents a modern adaptation of this classic play. $18-$28. www.custommade.org. 

1620 Gough St., San Francisco. (415) 863-1076, www.nextstagetheater.com or www.ticketweb.com.< 

OFF-MARKET THEATER  

"Tilted Frame Network," through May 13, Thursday, 8 p.m. Enjoy a night of multimedia improv comedy. $20. www.combinedartform.com. 

"ShortLived 3.0," through June 26, Friday and Saturday, 8 p.m. The largest audience-judged playwrighting competetion in the nation returns with experienced playwrights, unknown up-and-comers and local, independent theater companies. $20. www.pianofight.com. 

"City Solo," through May 23, Sunday, 7 p.m. Program features four short pieces, written and performed by the solo artists themselves, including Monica Bhatangar, Susan Ito, Kathy Jetnil-Kijner, Sarah Weidman and Nicole Maxali. $15.  

965 Mission St., San Francisco. < 

ORPHEUM THEATRE  

CLOSING -- "Wicked,'' Tuesday-Saturday, 8 p.m.; Wednesday, Saturday and Sunday, 2 p.m.; Oct. 11 and Dec. 27, 7:30 p.m.; Nov. 27, 2 p.m.; Dec. 21 and 28, 8 p.m. "Wicked'' is the untold story of the witches of Oz. Long before Dorothy drops in, two other girls meet in the land of Oz. One, born with emerald-green skin, is smart, fiery and misunderstood. The other is beautiful, ambitious and very popular. "Wicked" tells the story of their remarkable odyssey, how these two unlikely friends grow to become the Wicked Witch of the West and Glinda the Good Witch. $30-$99.  

1192 Market St., San Francisco. (415) 512-7770, www.shnsf.com.< 

PHOENIX THEATRE  

CLOSING -- "Ashes to Ashes," through May 8. A husband's seemingly casual conversation unearth's his wife's sadistic affair. $14-$18.  

414 Mason St., Sixth Floor, San Francisco. (800) 838-3006, www.offbroadwaywest.org.< 

SAN FRANCISCO COMEDY COLLEGE CLUBHOUSE (800) 838-3006, www.clubhousecomedy.com.  

"Naked Comedy," A comedy showcase featuring some of the best comedians in San Francisco. BYOB for 21 and over. Saturdays, 9 p.m. $10. 

"Hump Day Comedy," Host Rich Stimbra and a variety of stand-up comics will get you over the Wednesday work hump. BYOB for 21 and over. Wednesday, 8 p.m. $5. 

414 Mason St., Suite 705, San Francisco. (415) 921-2051, www.sfcomedycollege.com.< 

SHELTON THEATER  

"Shopping! The Musical," by Morris Bobrow, A quick-paced musical about those obsessed with buying things. Friday-Saturday, 8 p.m. $27-$29. www.shoppingthemusical.com. 

Big City Improv, Friday, 10 p.m. $20. (510) 595-5597, www.bigcityimprov.com. 

"See Mom, I Didn't Forget," May 9, 2 and 7 p.m. Featuring solo performances by Julia Jackson, Thao P. Nguyen, Zahra Noorbakhsh, Martha Rynberg, Paolo Sambrano $20-$30.  

533 Sutter St., San Francisco. (415) 433-1227, www.sheltontheater.com or www.sheltontheater.com.<

“Jerusalem: the East Side Story” 

a film by Mohammed Alatar 

Friday May 7 at 7 pm 

Fellowship Hall, 1924 Cedar, at Bonita  

Fourth in Berkeley Fellowship of Unitarian Universalists’ 

Palestine film series: 

“Palestine: Occupied Lives, Non-Violence and Steadfastness”  

Donation appreciated: no one turned away for lack of funds 

Wheelchair accessible 

To benefit the Palestine Children’s Relief Fund  

In 1948, the western part of Jerusalem fell under Israeli control; in 1967, the eastern part fell under Israeli occupation. Since then, Israel has pursued a policy of Judaizing the city, aiming to achieve “Jewish demographic superiority.” Part of this policy is to drive out Palestinian Muslims and Christians, denying their presence, history, and ties to the land.  

Israel has constructed a ring of Jewish settlements that cuts Jerusalem—the center of Palestinians’ religious, cultural, and economic life—from the rest of the West Bank. The film shows the effects of these policies on Palestinians. Families watch in desperation as giant bulldozers demolish their home. Some live in tents across from their homes, evicted to make room for Jewish settlers. Crowds tussle to obtain permits to go worship at Al Aksa mosque, the Muslim heart of Jerusalem. The many who fail to obtain permits on time pray in the streets. Families are separated by an absurd system of permits. 

The film includes interviews with Palestinian and Israeli leaders, human rights activists and political analysts. 

Co-Sponsors: American Friends Service Committee, Arab Film Festival, BFUU-Social Justice Committee, Ecumenical Peace Institute, Fr. Bill O'Donnell Social Justice Committee of St. Joseph the Worker, Flashpoints (KPFA), International Solidarity Movement, Jewish Voice for Peace, Middle East Children Alliance, Students for Justice in Palestine-UCB  

A discussion will follow the film. It will be led by Palestinian-American Nabil Wahbeh, who is from Jerusalem and had to leave following Israel’s conquest of East Jerusalem in 1967. 

"South of the Border, down Mexico Way" might well be the theme song of one of Berkeley's favorite restaurants, "La Fiesta." Entering through the handsome gates of this marvelous Mexican restaurant, one indeed feels transported to old Mexico. With its Spanish revival furniture and Diego Rivera reproductions lining the walls, dining at La Fiesta is a joy, 

thanks in great part to the restaurant's owners, Mario and Rosalinda Tejada, who have served authentic, inexpensive meals for more than three generations. 

Back in February, 2009, the Tejadas reluctantly announced that they were forced to give up their original restaurant, located at the corner of Telegraph and Haste Street, due to the poor economy and low patronage. Fortunately for us, however, La Fiesta moved a block away into the charming small building at 2506 Haste Street, across from People's Park. Most of their dishes are prepared as you order them, so you must allow time when you visit. But where else would you find these authentic Mexican dishes at such low prices -- enchiladas, Chile Rellenos, Tostadas, Tamales -- all just $2.60 each? Margaritas are priced at a mere $3.50, Mexican Hot Chocolate, $2.00. Dinner combinations are a modest $7.85. 

When visiting the restaurant, you might want to walk back to the rear, entering a courtyard with a fountain filled with flowers, and, not surprisingly, a large painting of the Virgin Mary. This courtyard would be an ideal place for private parties. 

So, for a thoroughly enjoyable dining experience, I would suggest you treat yourself to lunch or dinner at La Fiesta, receiving a warm welcome from Mario and Rosalinda, two of Berkeley's beloved citizens. A word of warning, though; since they're not open every day, you'll want to make reservations. (510) 848-2588. 

Hundreds of Berkeleyans and visitors to town turned out in picture-perfect spring weather on Sunday, May 2, 2010 to attend two tours. 

At least 1,000 paying guests and volunteers thronged the Berkeley Architectural Heritage Association (BAHA) annual house tour featured 8 properties designed by Julia Morgan.  

The self-guided walking tour included chamber music, a magnificent mansion in the Claremont, the house of an early UC professor largely unchanged from its 1905 character, and a hidden gem of a wood timbered garage. 

Hundreds more went on the “Bringing Back the Natives” garden tour that extended throughout the East Bay and included several properties in Berkeley, from the San Pablo Avenue flatlands to the crest of the hills. 

Some managed to squeeze in parts of both tours, with the Natives excursion starting three hours before the BAHA tour. 

OUTDOORS-EAST BAY THROUGH MAY 16  

ARDENWOOD HISTORIC FARM Ardenwood farm is a working farm that dates back to the time of the Patterson Ranch, a 19th-century estate with a mansion and Victorian Gardens. Today, the farm still practices farming techniques from the 1870s. Unless otherwise noted, programs are free with regular admission.  

ONGOING PROGRAMS --  

"Blacksmithing," Thursday, Friday and Sunday, 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Watch a blacksmith turn iron into useful tools.  

"Horse-Drawn Train," Thursday, Friday and Sunday. A 20-minute ride departs from Ardenwood Station and Deer Park.  

"Animal Feeding," Thursday-Sunday, 3-4 p.m. Help slop the hogs, check the henhouse for eggs and bring hay to the livestock.  

"Victorian Flower Arranging," Thursday, 10:15-11:30 a.m. Watch as Ardenwood docents create floral works of art for display in the Patterson House.  

SPECIAL EVENTS --  

"Horse-Drawn Train Rides," Thursday, Friday and Sunday, 10:15 a.m.-3:30 p.m. Meet Jigs or Tucker the Belgian Draft horses that pull Ardenwood's train. Check the daily schedule and meet the train at Ardenwood Station or Deer Park. 

"Country Kitchen Cookin'," Sundays, 10:30 a.m.-2 p.m. Enjoy the flavor of the past with treats cooked on Ardenwood's wood burning stove. Sample food grown on the farm and discover the history of your favorite oldtime snacks. 

"Animal Feeding," Thursday-Sunday, 3 p.m. Feed the pigs, check for eggs and bring hay to the livestock. 

"Toddler Time," Tuesdays, 11-11:30 a.m. Bring the tiny tots out for an exciting morning at the farm. Meet and learn all about a new animal friend through stories, chores and fun.  

"Potato Harvesting," Learn the spectacular history of this New World native as you dig with your spade and help find the spuds. 

Lambs, Kids and Piglets -- Oh My,'' May 8 and May 29, 11 a.m-noon. Learn farm animal facts on a morning stroll. 

"What's the Cluck About," May 8, 1-2 p.m. Learn about fine feathered friends and make a craft. 

"Tussie-Mussie for Mom," May 9, 1:30-2:30 p.m. Select flowers for a special mother's day message. 

"Zainy Brainy Weather Vaynes," May 9, 11:30-12:30 p.m. Make your own unique weather vane. 

"Flower Pressing Perfection," May 9, 12:30-1:30 p.m. Learn how to preserve precious petals by making flower presses. 

"Old-Fashioned Games," May 9, 2-3 p.m. Try walking on stilts, marbles and jacks or compete in a sack race. 

"Kids and Lambs," May 9, 10:30-11:30 a.m. Learn to tell breeds of sheep and goats apart. 

"Hay Hoisting," May 9 and May 30, 2:30-3 p.m. Make rope and help hoist hay bales. 

"Cool Crisp Kites," May 15, 1:30-2:30 p.m. Learn how to make your own kite and navigate it. 

"April Showers Bring May Herbs and Flowers," May 15, 12:30-1:30 p.m. Read a story about nature and plant your own herb or flower and watch it grow. 

"Barnyard Buddies," May 15, 11 a.m. Feed the goats a snack and more. 

"Play With Dough," May 16, Noon-1 p.m. Discover the fun of kneading pretzels. 

"Excellent Eggshells," May 16, 11 a.m.-noon. Use eggshells as flowerpots for seedlings. 

"Hooray for Honeybees," May 16, Noon-1 p.m. Discover how special these insects are. 

$1-$5; free children under age 4. Tuesday-Sunday, 10 a.m.-4 p.m. 34600 Ardenwood Blvd., Fremont. (510) 796-0199, (510) 796-0663, www.ebparks.org.< 

BAY AREA RAIL TRAILS A network of trails converted from unused railway corridors and developed by the Rails to Trails Conservancy.  

BLACK DIAMOND MINES REGIONAL PRESERVE RAILROAD BED TRAIL -- This easy one mile long rail trail on Mount Diablo leads to many historic sites within the preserve. Suitable for walking, horseback riding, and mountain biking. Accessible year round but may be muddy during the rainy season. Enter from the Park Entrance Station parking lot on the East side of Somersville Road, Antioch.  

IRON HORSE REGIONAL TRAIL -- The paved trail has grown into a 23 mile path between Concord and San Ramon with a link into Dublin. The trail runs from the north end of Monument Boulevard at Mohr Lane, east to Interstate 680, in Concord through Walnut Creek to just south of Village Green Park in San Ramon. It will eventually extend from Suisun Bay to Pleasanton and has been nominated as a Community Millennium Trail under the U.S. Millennium Trails program. A smooth shaded trail suitable for walkers, cyclists, skaters and strollers. It is also wheelchair accessible. Difficulty: easy to moderate in small chunks; hard if taken as a whole.  

LAFAYETTE/MORAGA REGIONAL TRAIL -- A 7.65 mile paved trail converted from the Sacramento Northern Rail line. This 20-year old trail goes along Las Trampas Creek and parallels St. Mary's Road. Suitable for walkers, equestrians, and cyclists. Runs from Olympic Boulevard and Pleasant Hill Road in Lafayette to Moraga. The trail can be used year round.  

OHLONE GREENWAY -- A 3.75-mile paved trail converted from the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe railway. Suitable for walkers, strollers and skaters. It is also wheelchair accessible. The trail runs under elevated BART tracks from Conlon and Key Streets in El Cerrito to Virginia and Acton Streets in Berkeley.  

SHEPHERD CANYON TRAIL -- An easy 3-mile paved trail converted from the Sacramento Northern Rail Line. The tree-lined trail is gently sloping and generally follows Shepherd Canyon Road. Suitable for walkers and cyclists. It is also wheelchair accessible. Begins in Montclair Village behind McCaulou's Department Store on Medau Place and ends at Paso Robles Drive, Oakland. Useable year round. 

Free. (415) 397-2220, www.traillink.com.< 

BAY AREA RIDGE TRAIL The Bay Area Ridge Trail, when completed, will be a 400-mile regional trail system that will form a loop around the entire San Francisco Bay region, linking 75 public parks and open spaces to thousands of people and hundreds of communities. Hikes on portions of the trail are available through the Bay Area Ridge Trail Council. Call for meeting sites.  

ONGOING EVENTS --  

ALAMEDA COUNTY -- "Lake Chabot Bike Rides." These rides are for strong beginners and intermediates to build skill, strength and endurance at a non hammerhead pace. No one will be dropped. Reservations required. Distance: 14 miles. Elevation gain: 1,000 feet. Difficulty: beginner to intermediate. Pace: moderate. Meeting place: Lake Chabot Road at the main entrance to the park. Thursday, 6:15 a.m. (510) 468-3582.  

ALAMEDA-CONTRA COSTA COUNTY -- "Tilden and Wildcat Bike Rides." A vigorous ride through Tilden and Wildcat Canyon regional parks. Reservations required. Distance: 15 miles. Elevation gain: 2,000 feet. Difficulty: intermediate. Pace: fast. Meeting place: in front of the North Berkeley BART Station. Wednesday, 5:30 p.m. (510) 849-9650. 

Free. (415) 561-2595, www.ridgetrail.org.< 

BICYCLE TRAILS COUNCIL OF THE EAST BAY The Council sponsors trail work days, Youth Bike Adventure Rides, and Group Rides as well as Mountain Bike Basics classes which cover training and handling skills.  

ONGOING EVENTS --  

"Weekly Wednesday Ride at Lake Chabot," Wednesdays, 6:30 p.m. A 13- to 20-mile ride exploring the trails around Lake Chabot, with 1,500 to 2,000 feet of climbing. Meet at 6:15 p.m. in the parking lot across from the public safety offices at Lake Chabot in Castro Valley. Reservations requested. (510) 727-0613.  

"Weekly Wednesday 'Outer' East Bay Ride," Wednesdays, 5:30 p.m. Ride some of the outer East Bay parks each week, such as Wild Cat Canyon, Briones, Mount Diablo, Tilden and Joaquin Miller-Redwood. Meeting place and ride location vary. Reservations required. (510) 888-9757. 

Free. (510) 466-5123, www.btceb.org.< 

BLACK DIAMOND MINES REGIONAL PRESERVE Originally the home of several Native American tribes, white men began coal mining in the area in the 1860s. The preserve today features old mines and displays of the history of the area. 

SPECIAL EVENTS --  

"Prospect Tunnel Picnic," May 8, 9 a.m.-noon. Carpool to the eastern reaches of the park to take a trip underground to see late bloomers. 

"Painting in the Park," May 9, 10-11:30 a.m. Gather various minerals and elemtns and turn them into art. 

"The Old Fashioned Cemetery," May 15, 10 a.m.-noon. View a nineteenth century burial grounds. 

Free unless otherwise noted; $5 seasonal parking fee on weekends. Daily, 8 a.m. to dusk Somersville Road, about five miles south of state Highway 4, Antioch. Information: (925) 757-2620, Tickets: (925) 555-1212, www.ebparks.org.< 

COYOTE HILLS REGIONAL PARK The park is located on the shoreline of Fremont Bay and features rich wetland areas as well as Ohlone Indian shellmound sites. Hiking in the park allows scenic views of San Francisco Bay and southern Alameda County. The 12-mile Alameda Creek Trail runs from the Bay east to the mouth of Niles Canyon and features an equestrian trail as well as a bicycle trail; hikers are welcome on both. The park conducts naturalist programs and has a visitor center with a nature store and Ohlone, natural history and wildlife exhibits.  

SPECIAL EVENTS -- Free unless otherwise noted.  

"Do Butterflies and Bees Have Knees," May 8, 10:30 a.m.-12:30 p.m. Observe these animals as they are absorbed with feeding. 

"Focus on Wildlife: A Photo Exhibit," May 9, 10:30 a.m.-noon. View the best of Coyote Hills wildlife photographs. 

"Lends on Wildlife: Tips and Tricks," May 9, 1-2:30 p.m. Join experienced photographers in the nectar garden to learn tips and tricks for capturing stunning photos of birds and butterflies. 

"Coyote Cubs," May 11, 10-11:30 a.m. Encourage your child's "wild'' side and join the fun. 

"Nature Bytes for Busy Families," May 15, 2-3 p.m. Get to know the natural world with activities. 

"Shutterbugs," May 15, 10 a.m.-noon. Learn to photograph bugs and other natural wonders. 

"Animal Defenses," May 16, 1:30-2:30 p.m. Learn about how animals protect themselves. 

"Reptiles With Styles," May 16, 11 a.m.-noon. Get up-close and personal with reptiles. 

Free unless otherwise noted; A parking fee may be charged. Registration required for events. April through October: daily, 8 a.m. to 8 p.m.; October through April, 8 a.m. to 6 p.m., unless otherwise posted. 8000 Patterson Pass Road, Fremont. (510) 636-1684, (510) 795-9385, www.ebparks.org.< 

CRAB COVE VISITOR CENTER At Crab Cove, you can see live underwater creatures and go into the San Francisco Bay from land. You can also travel back in time to Alameda's part. The goal is to increase understanding of the environmental importance of San Francisco Bay and the ocean ecosystem. Crab Cove's Indoor Aquarium and Exhibit Lab is one of the largest indoor aquariums in the East Bay. 

SPECIAL EVENTS --  

"Catch of the Day," Sundays, 2-3 p.m. Drop by to find out more about the Bay and its wildlife through guided exploration and hands-on fun. 

"Sea Squirts," 10-11:30 a.m. and 11 a.m.-12:30 p.m. Discover the wonders of nature with your little one. Registration is required. $6-$8. 

"Sea Siblings," Tuesdays, 9:30 a.m. and 11 a.m. Explore the natural world and take part in a theme related craft. Designed for the 3-5 year old learner. Registration is required. $4. (888) 327-2757. 

"Concerts at the Cove," May 14, 5:30-7:30 p.m. Celebrate with free music and family fun. 

"Native Plant Gardening," May 15, 3-5 p.m. Spend an afternoon planting in the Visitor Center. 

Free unless otherwise noted; parking fee may be charged. 1252 McKay Ave., Alameda. (510) 521-6887, www.ebparks.org.< 

DUNSMUIR HOUSE AND GARDENS HISTORIC ESTATE Nestled in the Oakland hills, the 50-acre Dunsmuir House and Gardens estate includes the 37-room Neoclassical Revival Dunsmuir Mansion, built by coal and lumber baron Alexander Dunsmuir for his bride. Restored outbuildings set amid landscaped gardens surround the mansion.  

ESTATE GROUNDS -- Self-Guided Grounds Tours are available yearround. The 50 acres of gardens and grounds at the mansion are open to the public for walking Tuesday-Friday, 9 a.m.-4 p.m. Booklets and maps of the grounds are available at the Dinkelspiel House. Free.  

GUIDED TOURS -- Docent-led tours are available on the first Sunday of each month at 1 p.m. and 2 p.m. (except for July) and Wednesdays at 11 a.m. $5 adults, $4 seniors and juniors (11-16), children 11 and under free. 

Dunsmuir House and Gardens, 2960 Peralta Oaks Court, Oakland. (510) 615-5555, www.dunsmuir.org.< 

FIFTY-PLUS ADVENTURE WALKS AND RUNS The walks and runs are 3-mile round-trips, lasting about one hour on the trail. All levels of ability are welcome. The walks are brisk, however, and may include some uphill terrain. Events are held rain or shine and on all holidays except Christmas and the Fifty-Plus Annual Fitness Weekend. Call for dates, times and details. 

Free. (650) 323-6160, www.50plus.org.< 

FOREST HOME FARMS The 16-acre former farm of the Boone family is now a municipal historic park in San Ramon. It is located at the base of the East Bay Hills and is divided into two parts by Oak Creek. The Boone House is a 22-room Dutch colonial that has been remodeled several times since it was built in 1900. Also on the property are a barn built in the period from 1850 to 1860; the Victorian-style David Glass House, dating from the late 1860s to early 1870s; a storage structure for farm equipment and automobiles; and a walnut processing plant. 

Free unless otherwise noted. Public tours available by appointment. 19953 San Ramon Valley Blvd., San Ramon. (925) 973-3281, www.ci.sanramon. ca.us/parks/boone.htm.< 

GARIN AND DRY CREEK PIONEER REGIONAL PARKS Independent nature study is encouraged here, and guided interpretive programs are available through the Coyote Hills Regional Park Visitor Center in Fremont. The Garin Barn Visitor Center is open Saturday and Sunday from 10 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. In late summer, the Garin Apple Festival celebrates Garin's apple orchards. The parks also allow picnicking, hiking, horseback riding and fishing. 

Free; $5 parking fee per vehicle; $2 per dog. Daily, 5 a.m. to 10 p.m. 1320 Garin Ave., Hayward. (510) 562-PARK, (510) 795-9385, www.ebparks.org/parks/garin.htm.< 

GREENBELT ALLIANCE OUTINGS A series of hikes, bike rides and events sponsored by Greenbelt Alliance, the Bay Area's non-profit land conservation and urban planning organization. Call for meeting places. Reservations required for all trips.  

ALAMEDA COUNTY --  

"Self-Guided Urban Outing: Berkeley," This interactive smart growth walking tour of central Berkeley examines some of the exciting projects that help alleviate the housing shortage in the city as well as amenities important to making a livable community. The walk, which includes the GAIA Cultural Center, Allston Oak Court, The Berkeley Bike Station, University Terrace and Strawberry Creek Park, takes between an hour-and-ahalf to two hours at a leisurely pace. Download the itinerary which gives specific directions by entering www.greeenbelt.org and clicking on "get involved'' and then "urban outings.'' Drop down and click on Berkeley. Free. 

Free unless otherwise noted. (415) 255-3233, www.greenbelt.org.< 

HAYWARD REGIONAL SHORELINE With 1,682 acres of salt, fresh and brackish water marshes, seasonal wetlands and the approximately three-mile San Lorenzo Trail, the Hayward Shoreline restoration project is one of the largest of its kind on the West Coast, comprising 400 acres of marshland. Part of the East Bay Regional Park District. 

EVENTS --  

Free. Daily, 5 a.m. to 10 p.m. 3010 W. Winton Ave., Hayward. (510) 562-PARK, www.ebparks.org/parks/hayward.htm.< 

HAYWARD SHORELINE INTERPRETIVE CENTER Perched on stilts above a salt marsh, the Center offers an introduction to the San Francisco Bay-Estuary. It features exhibits, programs and activities designed to inspire a sense of appreciation, respect and stewardship for the Bay, its inhabitants and the services they provide. The Habitat Room offers a preview of what may be seen outside. The 80-gallon Bay Tank contains some of the fish that live in the Bay's open waters, and the Channel Tank represents habitats formed by the maze of sloughs and creeks that snake through the marsh. The main room of the Center features rotating exhibits about area history, plants and wildlife. Part of the Hayward Area Recreation and Park District.  

ONGOING EXHIBIT --  

"Exploring Nature," An exhibit of Shawn Gould's illustrations featuring images of the natural world. 

SPECIAL EVENTS --  

"Waterfowl of the Freshwater Marsh," 10 a.m.-1 p.m. Join an expert birder to go "behind the gates'' to areas of the marsh that are not open to the public. 

"Weekend Weed Warriors," 1-4 p.m. Help the shoreline to eliminate the non-native plants that threaten its diversity. Ages 12 and older. Registration required. 

"Nature Detectives," 11 a.m.-noon. An introduction and exploration of the world of Black-Crowned Night-Herons. Ages 3-5 and their caregivers. Registration required. 

"Freshwater Marsh From a Different Prospective," May 8, 9 a.m.-noon. Go birding in the opposite direction on the trail in search of the elusive Black-crowned Nigh Heron.  

"Weekend Weed Warriors," May 9, 1-4 p.m. Help out with invasive plant removal.  

"Strolls in the Past," May 12, 10:30 a.m.-12:30 p.m. Explore the salt and shipping trade on the East Bay.  

"For the Love of Ducklings," May 15, 10:30 a.m.-noon. Look for baby ducks and geese swimming around with their parents.  

"Biking the Bayshore," May 16, 10:30 a.m.-12:30 p.m. Bring your family out for a 5-mile ride along the Bay Trail.  

Free. Saturday and Sunday, 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. 4901 Breakwater Ave., Hayward. (510) 670-7270, www.hard.dst.ca.us/hayshore.html.< 

JOHN MUIR NATIONAL HISTORIC SITE The site preserves the 1882 Muir House, a 17-room Victorian mansion where naturalist John Muir lived from 1890 to his death in 1914. It was here that Muir wrote about preserving America's wilderness and helped create the national parks idea for the United States. The house is situated on a hill overlooking the City of Martinez and surrounded by nine acres of vineyards and orchards. Take a self-guided tour of this well-known Scottish naturalist's home. Also part of the site is the historic Martinez Adobe and Mount Wanda.  

ONGOING EVENT --  

Public Tours of the John Muir House, Begin with an eight-minute park film and then take the tour. The film runs every 15 minutes throughout the day. Wednesday through Friday, 2 p.m.; Saturday and Sunday, 1 p.m., 2 p.m. and 3 p.m.  

MOUNT WANDA -- The mountain consists of 325 acres of grass and oak woodland historically owned by the Muir family. It offers a nature trail and several fire trails for hiking. Open daily, sunrise to sunset. 

JOHN MUIR HOUSE, Tours of this well-known Scottish naturalist's home are available. The house, built in 1882, is a 14-room Victorian home situated on a hill overlooking the city of Martinez and surrounded by nine acres of vineyards and orchards. It was here that Muir wrote about preserving America's wilderness and helped create the national parks idea for the United States. The park also includes the historic Vicente Martinez Adobe, built in 1849. An eight-minute film about Muir and the site is shown every 15 minutes throughout the day at the Visitor Center. Self guided tours of the Muir home, the surrounding orchards, and the Martinez Adobe: Wednesday-Sunday, 1 a.m.-5 p.m. Public tours or the first floor of the Muir home: Wednesday-Friday, 2 p.m.; Saturday-Sunday, 2 p.m. and 3 p.m. Reservations not required except for large groups.  

$3 general; free children ages 16 and under. Wednesday-Sunday, 10 a.m.-5 p.m. 4202 Alhambra Ave., Martinez. (925) 228-8860, www.nps.gov/jomu.< 

KENNEDY GROVE REGIONAL RECREATION AREA The 95-acre park contains picnic areas, horseshoe pits and volleyball courts among its grove of aromatic eucalyptus trees.  

$5 parking; $2 per dog except guide/service dogs Through September: daily, 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. San Pablo Dam Road, El Sobrante. (510) 223-7840, www.ebparks.org.< 

LAKE CHABOT REGIONAL PARK The 315-acre lake offers year-round recreation. Services include canoe and boat rental, horseshoe pits, hiking, bicycling, picnicking and seasonal tours aboard the Chabot Queen. For boat rentals, call (510) 247-2526. 

Free unless noted otherwise; $5 parking; $2 per dog except guide/service dogs. Daily, 6 a.m. to 9 p.m. 17930 Lake Chabot Road, Castro Valley. (510) 562-PARK, www.ebparks.org.< 

LINDSAY WILDLIFE MUSEUM This is the oldest and largest wildlife rehabilitation center in America, taking in 6,000 injured and orphaned animals yearly and returning 40 percent of them to the wild. The museum offers a wide range of educational programs using non-releasable wild animals to teach children and adults respect for the balance of nature. The museum includes a state-of-the art wildlife hospital which features a permanent exhibit, titled "Living with Nature,'' which houses 75 non-releasable wild animals in learning environments; a 5,000-square-foot Wildlife Hospital complete with treatment rooms, intensive care, quarantine and laboratory facilities; a 1-acre Nature Garden featuring the region's native landscaping and wildlife; and an "Especially For Children'' exhibit.  

WILDLIFE HOSPITAL -- September-March: 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. The hospital is open daily including holidays to receive injured and orphaned animals. There is no charge for treatment of native wild animals and there are no public viewing areas in the hospital. 

EXHIBITS --  

SPECIAL EVENTS --  

$5-$7; free children under age 2. Wednesdays-Sundays, 10 a.m.-5 p.m. 1931 First Ave., Walnut Creek. (925) 935-1978, www.wildlife-museum.org.< 

LIVERMORE AREA RECREATION AND PARK DISTRICT  

4444 East Ave., Livermore. (925) 373-5700, www.larpd.dst.ca.us/.< 

MARTIN LUTHER KING JR. SHORELINE This 1,200-acre park situated near Oakland International Airport offers picnic areas with barbecues and a boat launch ramp. Swimming is not allowed. The Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial Grove, a group of trees surrounding a grassy glade, is at the intersection of Doolittle Drive and Swan Way. The area also includes the 50-acre Arrowhead Marsh (part of the Western Hemisphere Shorebird Reserve Network) and a Roger Berry sculpture titled "Duplex Cone,'' which traces the summer and winter solstice paths of the sun through the sky. 

Free. Daily, 5 a.m. to 10 p.m., unless otherwise posted Doolittle Drive and Swan Way, Oakland. (510) 562-PARK, Picnic reservations: (510) 636-1684, www.ebayparks.org.< 

MILLER-KNOX REGIONAL SHORELINE A 295-acre shoreline picnic area with a secluded cove and swimming beach, and a hilltop offering panoramic views of the north Bay Area. 

Free. Daily, 5 a.m. to 10 p.m., unless otherwise posted. 900 Dornan Dr., Richmond. (510) 562-PARK, Picnic Reservations: (510) 636-1684, www.ebparks.org.< 

MOUNT DIABLO STATE PARK The 3,849-foot summit of Mount Diablo offers great views of the Bay Area and an extensive trail system. Visitors to the park can hike, bike, ride on horseback and camp. Notable park attractions include: The Fire Interpretive Trail, Rock City, Boy Scout Rocks and Sentinel Rock, Fossil Ridge, Deer Flat, Mitchell Canyon Staging Area, Diablo Valley Overlook, the Summit Visitor Center (open Wednesday through Sunday, 10 a.m. to 4 p.m.), the Art Gallery, the Observation Deck and the Mitchell Canyon Interpretive Center. 

Free. $6 per vehicle park-entrance fee; $5 for seniors. Daily, 8 a.m. to sunset. Mount Diablo Scenic Boulevard, from the Diablo Road exit off Interstate Highway 680, Danville. (925) 837-2525, www.mdia.org or www.parks.ca.gov.< 

OAKLAND ZOO The zoo includes a Children's Petting Zoo, the Skyride, a miniature train, a carousel, picnic grounds and a gift shop as well as the animals in site specific exhibits, which allow them to roam freely. Included are "The African Savanna,'' with its two huge mixed-animal aviaries and 11 African Savanna exhibits; the Mahali Pa Tembo (Place of the Elephant), with giraffes, chimpanzees and more than 330 other animals from around the world; "Simba Pori,'' Swahili for "Lion Country,'' a spacious 1.5-acre habitat offering both a savanna and woodland setting for African lions; "Footprints from the Past,'' an anthropology exhibit showcasing four million years of human evolution and an actual "footpath'' of the first hominids to emerge from the African savanna; "Sun Bear Exhibit,'' a stateof-the-art space the zoo has developed for its two sun bears; and Siamang Island, a state-of-the-art, barrier-free area that emulates the gibbons' native tropical rain forest habitat. Also see the Malayan Fruit Bats from the Lubee Bat Conservancy in Florida that are now roosting in trees at the zoo. In addition there are special exhibits and events monthly.  

ONGOING EXHIBITS --  

"Valley Children's Zoo," The three-acre attraction offers a completely interactive experience for both children and adults. The exhibits include lemurs, giant fruit bats, otters, reptiles, insects and more. Daily, 10 a.m. to 4 p.m.  

"Endangered Species," An exhibit of photographs about the most endangered animals on the Earth and what can be done to save them. At the Education Center. Open daily during zoo hours. ONGOING EVENTS --  

"Valley Children's Zoo," Daily, 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. The three-acre attraction will offer a completely interactive experience for both children and adults. The exhibits include lemurs, giant fruit bats, otters, reptiles, insects and more. Free with regular Zoo admission.  

"Wildlife Theater," Saturday, 11:45 a.m.; Sunday, 1:45 p.m. On Saturday mornings listen to a story and meet a live animal. On Sunday afternoon meet live animals and learn cool facts about them. Meet in the Lobby of the Zoo's Maddie's Center for Science and Environmental Education. Free with regular Zoo admission. (510) 632-9525, ext. 142. 

SPECIAL EVENTS --  

$7.50-11; free children under age 2; $6 parking fee. Daily, 10 a.m.-4 p.m. Knowland Park, 9777 Golf Links Road, Oakland. (510) 632-9525, www.oaklandzoo.org.< 

PLEASANTON RIDGE REGIONAL PARK This 3,163-acre parkland is on the oak-covered ridge overlooking Pleasanton and the Livermore Valley from the west. A multi-purpose trail system accommodates hikers, equestrians and bicyclists. 

Free. Daily, 5 a.m. to 10 p.m. Foothill Road, Pleasanton. (510) 562-PARK, www.ebparks.org.< 

POINT PINOLE REGIONAL SHORELINE The 2,315-acre parkland bordering Pinole, Richmond and San Pablo offers views of Mount Tamalpais, the Marin shoreline and San Pablo Bay. There are trails through meadows and woods, and along the bluffs and beaches of San Pablo Bay. Visitors can hike, ride bikes or take the park's shuttle bus to reach the 1,250-foot fishing pier at Point Pinole. 

$5 per vehicle; $4 per trailered vehicle; $2 per dog (guide/service dogs free). Daily, 5 a.m. to 10 p.m., unless otherwise posted. Giant Highway, Richmond. (510) 562-PARK, www.ebparks.org.< 

PREWETT FAMILY WATERPARK There are pools and water slides for all ages, from the Tad Pool for toddlers to Boulder cove for older swimmers. In addition to fun pools and slides there are fitness pools for lessons and exercise, lawns for relaxing, locker rooms, community room and kitchen. Lap lanes are open year round. Food and beverages are not permitted in the park. Picnic tables are available outside the park. 

$5-$9. Sunday through Friday: 11 a.m.-7 p.m.; Saturdays, 11 a.m.-6 p.m. 4701 Lone Tree Way, Antioch. (925) 776-3070, www.ci.antioch.ca.us/CitySvcs/Prewett.< 

QUARRY LAKES REGIONAL RECREATION AREA The park includes three lakes sculpted from former quarry ponds. The largest, Horseshoe Lake, offers boating and fishing, with a swim beach that will open in the spring. Rainbow Lake is for fishing only, and the third lake, Lago Los Osos, is set aside for wildlife habitat. In addition, there are hiking and bicycling trails that connect to the Alameda Creek Regional Trail. The park includes three lakes sculpted from former quarry ponds. The largest, Horseshoe Lake, offers boating and fishing, with a swim beach that will open in the spring. Rainbow Lake is for fishing only, and the third lake, Lago Los Osos, is set aside for wildlife habitat. In addition there are hiking and bicycling trails that connect to the Alameda Creek Regional Trail. 

$5 parking; $2 per dog except guide/service dogs; boat launch fees; Park District fishing access permit fee of $3. Through Labor Day: daily, 6 a.m. to 9 p.m.; Sept. 6 through Sept. 30, 6 a.m. to 8 p.m. 2100 Isherwood Way,, between Paseo Padre Parkway and Osprey Drive,, Fremont. (510) 795-4883, Picnic reservations:: (510) 562-2267, www.ebparks.org.< 

REI BERKELEY A series of lectures on hikes and outdoor equipment. 

"Free Hands-on Bicycle Class: Flat Repair," May 15, 11 a.m.-noon. Learn how to fix a flat tire.  

"REI Cycling Festival," May 15, 10 a.m.-4 p.m. Discover how easy and fun it can be spend more time on your bike.  

"REI Paddle Fest," May 15, 10 a.m.-4 p.m. Learn about the newest kayaks, canoes, standup paddleboards and paddling gear.  

"Family Cycling Workshop," May 16, 9 a.m.-11:30 a.m. Join bike safety instructors for a fun, interactive family workshop on safe road cycling skills.  

Events are free and begin at 7 p.m. unless otherwise noted. 1338 San Pablo Ave., Berkeley. (510) 527-4140.< 

ROBERT SIBLEY VOLCANIC REGIONAL PRESERVE East Bay residents have several volcanoes in their backyard. This park contains Round Top, one of the highest peaks in the Oakland Hills. 

Free. Daily, 5 a.m. to 10 p.m. 6800 Skyline Blvd., Oakland. (510) 562-PARK, www.ebparks.org.< 

RUTH BANCROFT GARDEN One of America's finest private gardens, the Ruth Bancroft Garden displays 2,000 specimens from around the world that thrive in an arid climate. Included are African and Mexican succulents, New World cacti, Australian and Chilean trees, and shrubs from California. 

DOCENT TOUR SCHEDULE -- Saturdays, 10 a.m. Docent-led tours last approximately an hour and a half. Plant sales follow the tour. By reservation only. $7; free children under age 12.  

SELF-GUIDED TOURS -- Monday-Thursday, 9:30 a.m.-noon; Friday, 9:30 a.m.; Saturday, 9:30 a.m. and 5 p.m.; Sunday, 5 p.m. Self-guided tours last two hours. No reservations required for weekday tours; reservations required for Friday and Saturday tours. Plant sales follow the tours. $7; free children under age 12.  

Gardens open only for tours and special events listed on the garden's telephone information line. 1500 Bancroft Road, Walnut Creek. (925) 210-9663, www.ruthbancroftgarden.org.< 

SHADOW CLIFFS REGIONAL RECREATION AREA The 296-acre park includes an 80-acre lake and a four-flume waterslide, with picnic grounds and a swimming beach. Water slide fees and hours: (925) 829-6230. 

$6 per vehicle; $2 per dog except guide and service dogs. May 1 through Labor Day: daily, 6 a.m. to 9 p.m.; shortened hours for fall and winter. Stanley Boulevard, one mile from downtown, Pleasanton. (510) 562-PARK, www.ebparks.org.< 

SULPHUR CREEK NATURE CENTER A wildlife rehabilitation and education facility where injured and orphaned local wild creatures are rehabilitated and released when possible. There is also a lending library of animals such as guinea pigs, rats, mice and more. The lending fee is $8 per week.  

ONGOING EVENTS --  

"Toddler Time," Learn about animals by listening to stories and exploring. Themes vary by month. Call for schedule. $7 per family.  

"Day on the Green Animal Presentations," Meet an assortment of wild and domestic animals. Wildlife volunteers will present a different animal each day from possums to snakes, tortoises to hawks. Saturday and Sunday, 2:30 p.m. 

CHILDREN'S EVENTS --  

Free. Park: Tuesday-Sunday, 10 a.m.-5 p.m.; Discovery Center: Tuesday-Saturday, 10 a.m.-4:30 p.m.; Animal Lending Library: Saturday-Sunday, 10 a.m.-3 p.m.; Wildlife Rehabilitation Center: daily, 10 a.m.-4:30 p.m. 1801 D St., Hayward. (510) 881-6747, www.haywardrec.org/sulphur_creek.html.< 

SUNOL REGIONAL WILDERNESS This park is full of scenic and natural wonders. You can hike the Ohlone Wilderness trail or Little Yosemite. There are bedrock mortars that were used by Native Americans, who were Sunol's first inhabitants. 

SPECIAL EVENTS --  

"Sunol Sunday Hike," Sundays, 1:30-3 p.m. A natural history walk in the wilderness. 

"Sunol Sunday Hike," Sundays, 1:30-3 p.m. A natural history walk in Sunol Regional Wilderness. 

Free unless otherwise noted; $5 parking; $2 dog fee. Geary Road off Calaveras Road, six miles south of Interstate Highway 680, Sunol. (510) 652-PARK, www.ebparks.org.< 

TILDEN REGIONAL PARK This park is large and contains hiking trails, a golf course, a miniature scaled train to ride, The Brazilian Building and picnic areas. 

SPECIAL EVENTS --  

"Reptile Rendezvous," May 9, 2-3 p.m. Learn about the reptiles that call the nature area home. 

"Chicky Chickens," May 15, 2-3 p.m. Visit, feed and pet our country pals. 

"Wonderous Wildflowers," May 16, 2-3 p.m. Familiarize yourself with local wildflowers. 

Free unless otherwise noted. Daily, 5 a.m. to 10 p.m. Entrances off Wildcat Canyon Road and Grizzly Peak Boulevard, Berkeley. (510) 525-2233, www.ebparks.org.<

AFRICAN AMERICAN MUSEUM AND LIBRARY AT OAKLAND The Oakland Public Library's museum is designed to discover, preserve, interpret and share the cultural and historical experiences of African Americans in California and the West. In addition, a three-panel mural is on permanent display. 

Free. Tuesday-Saturday, noon-5:30 p.m. 659 14th St., Oakland. (510) 637-0200, www.oaklandlibrary.org.< 

ALAMEDA MUSEUM The museum offers permanent displays of Alameda history, the only rotating gallery showcasing local Alameda artists and student artwork, as well as souvenirs, books and videos about the rich history of the Island City. 

Free. Wednesday-Friday and Sunday, 1-4 p.m.; Saturday, 11 a.m.-4 p.m. 2324 Alameda Ave., Alameda. (510) 521-1233, www.alamedamuseum.org.< 

BADE MUSEUM AT THE PACIFIC SCHOOL OF RELIGION The museum's collections include the Tell en-Nasbeh Collection, consisting of artifacts excavated from Tell en-Nasbeh in Palestine in 1926 and 1935 by William Badh, and the Howell Bible Collection, featuring approximately 300 rare books (primarily Bibles) dating from the 15th through the 18th centuries. 

"Tell en-Nasbeh," This exhibit is the "heart and soul" of the Bade Museum. It displays a wealth of finds from the excavations at Tell en-Nasbeh, Palestine whose objects span from the Early Bronze Age (3100-2200 BC) through the Iron Age (1200-586 BC) and into the Roman and Hellenistic periods. Highlights of the exhibit include "Tools of the Trade" featuring real archaeological tools used by Badh and his team, an oil lamp typology, a Second Temple period (586 BC-70 AD) limestone ossuary, and a selection of painted Greek pottery.  

"William Frederic Bade: Theologian, Naturalist, and Archaeologist," This exhibit highlights one of PSR's premier educators and innovative scholars. The collection of material on display was chosen with the hopes of representing the truly dynamic and multifaceted character of William F. Badh. He was a family man, a dedicated teacher, a loving friend, and an innovative and passionate archaeologist.  

Free. Tuesday-Thursday, 10:30 a.m.-3 p.m. Holbrook Hall, Pacific School of Religion, 1798 Scenic Ave., Berkeley. (510) 848-0528, www.bade.psr.edu/bade.< 

BERKELEY ART MUSEUM AND PACIFIC FILM ARCHIVE  

"French Film Posters from the BAM/PFA Collection," through May 31. Part of the Pacific Film Archive's collection of over eight thousand international film posters, these rare prints were bequeathed to BAM/PFA by the late Mel Novikoff, founder of San Francisco's first repertory cinema chain, Surf Theaters, which included the Surf, the Lumiere, and the Castro. Novikoff collected these posters during many trips to Europe, and for years they graced the lobbies of cinemas in the Surf chain. Now they can be enjoyed in the museum's Theater Gallery, where admission is free.  

"Thom Faulders: BAMscape," through Nov. 30. This commissioned work, a hybrid of sculpture, furniture, and stage, is the new centerpiece of Gallery B, BAM's expansive central atrium. It is part of a new vision of the gallery as a space for interaction, performance, and improvised experiences.  

"Nature into Action: Hans Hofmann," through June 30. This installation drawn from BAM's extensive Hans Hofmann collection reveals the relationship between nature as source and action as method in the great abstract painter's work.  

"James Buckhouse: Serg Riva," through May 31. Welcome to the world of Serg Riva, self-declared "aquatic couturier,'' enfant terrible, and man about town"-and sly fictive creation of artist James Buckhouse.  

CLOSING -- "Assignment Shanghai: Photographs on the Eve of Revolution," through May 9. In 1946, Life magazine assigned the young photographer Jack Birns to Shanghai with instructions to document the ongoing Chinese civil war. This selection of the resulting photographs, drawn from the BAM collection, vividly captures a cosmopolitan city in the midst of social and political change.  

CLOSING -- "Realm of Enlightenment: Masters and Teachers from the Land of Snows," through May 16. A new installation of extraordinary objects from Tibet explores the role of the teacher and master in the transmission of the Buddhist canon.  

"What's It All Mean: William T. Wiley in Retrospect," through July 18. This retrospective surveys the witty, idiosyncratic, and introspective work of William T. Wiley, a beloved Bay Area artist and "a national treasure'' (Wall Street Journal). Layered with ambiguous ideas and allusions, autobiographical narrative and sociopolitical commentary, Wiley's art is rich in self-deprecating humor and absurdist insight.  

"Perpetual and furious refrain / MATRIX 232," through Sept. 12. Exhibition features works by Brent Green.  

2626 Bancroft Way, Berkeley. < 

BLACKHAWK MUSEUM  

AUTOMOTIVE MUSEUM -- The museum's permanent exhibition of internationally renowned automobiles dated from 1897 to the 1980s. The cars are displayed as works of art with room to walk completely around each car to admire the workmanship. On long-term loan from the Smithsonian Institution is a Long Steam Tricycle; an 1893-94 Duryea, the first Duryea built by the Duryea brothers; and a 1948 Tucker, number 39 of the 51 Tuckers built, which is a Model 48 "Torpedo'' four-door sedan.  

ONGOING EXHIBITS --  

"International Automotive Treasures," An ever-changing exhibit featuring over 90 automobiles.  

"A Journey on Common Ground," An exhibit of moving photographs, video and art objects from around the world exploring the causes of disability and the efforts of the Wheelchair Foundation to provide a wheelchair for every person in need who cannot afford one.  

ONGOING EVENT --  

Free Public Tours, Saturday and Sunday, 2 p.m. Docent-led guided tours of the museum's exhibitions. 

$5-$8; free for children ages 6 and under. Wednesday-Sunday, 10 a.m.-5 p.m. 3700 Blackhawk Plaza Circle, Danville. (925) 736-2280, (925) 736-2277, www.blackhawkmuseum.org.< 

CHABOT SPACE AND SCIENCE CENTER State-of-the-art facility unifying science education activities around astronomy. Enjoy interactive exhibits, hands-on activities, indoor stargazing, outdoor telescope viewing and films. 

"Beyond Blastoff: Surviving in Space," An interactive exhibit that allows you to immerse yourself into the life of an astronaut to experience the mixture of exhilaration, adventure and confinement that is living and working in space.  

"Chabot Observatories: A View to the Stars," Explore the history of the Chabot observatories and how its historic telescopes are used today. Daytime visitors can virtually operate a telescope, experiment with mirrors and lenses to understand how telescopes create images of distant objects and travel through more than a century of Chabot's history via multimedia kiosks, historical images and artifact displays.  

EVENTS -- CLOSED FOR MAINTENANCE: SEPT. 2-16.  

"Daytime Telescope Viewing," Saturday and Sunday, 11 a.m.-5 p.m. View the sun, the moon and the planets through the telescopes during the day. Free with general admission. 

"Galaxy Explorers Hands-On Fun," Saturday, noon-4 p.m. The Galaxy Explorers lead a variety of fun, hands-on activities, such as examining real spacesuits, creating galaxy flipbooks, learning about telescopes, minerals and skulls and making your own comet. Free with general admission. 

"Live Daytime Planetarium Show," Saturdays, 2:30 p.m. Ride through real-time constellations, stars and planets with Chabot's full-dome digital projection system. 

Center Admission: $9-$13; free children under 3; Movies and evening planetarium shows: $6-$8. Telescope viewing only: free. Wednesday-Thursday, 10 a.m.-5 p.m.; Friday-Saturday, 10 a.m.-10 p.m.; Sunday, 11 a.m.-5 p.m. 10000 Skyline Blvd., Oakland. (510) 336-7300, www.chabotspace.org.< 

HAYWARD AREA HISTORICAL SOCIETY MUSEUM The museum is located in a former post office and displays memorabilia of early Hayward and southern Alameda County. Some of the features include a restored 1923 Seagrave fire engine and a hand pumper from the Hayward Fire Department, founded in 1865; a Hayward Police Department exhibit; information on city founder William Hayward; and pictures of the old Hayward Hotel. The museum also alternates three exhibits per year, including a Christmas Toys exhibit and a 1950s lifestyle exhibit. 

EVENTS --  

50 cents-$1. Tuesday-Saturday, 11 a.m.-4 p.m. 22701 Main St., Hayward. (510) 581-0223, www.haywardareahistory.org.< 

JUDAH L. MAGNES MUSEUM The museum's permanent collection includes objects of Jewish importance including ceremonial art, film and video, folk art and fine art, paintings, sculptures and prints by contemporary and historical artists. 

"Projections," Multimedia works from the museum's extensive collections of archival, documentary and experimental films. Located at 2911 Russell Street.  

SPECIAL EXHIBITS --  

$4-$6; free for children under age 12. Sunday-Wednesday, 10 a.m.-4 p.m.; Thursday, 11 a.m.-8 p.m. CLOSED APRIL 3-4 AND 9-10; MAY 23-24 AND 28; JULY 4; SEPT. 3, 13 AND 27; OCT. 4; NOV. 22; DEC. 24-25 AND 31. 2911 Russell St., Berkeley. (510) 549-6950, www.magnes.org.< 

LAWRENCE HALL OF SCIENCE  

ONGOING EXHIBITS --  

"NanoZone," Discover the science of the super-small: nanotechnology. Through hands-on activities and games, explore this microworld and the scientific discoveries made in this area.  

"Forces That Shape the Bay," A science park that shows and explains why the San Francisco Bay is the way it is, with information on water, erosion, plate tectonics and mountain building. You can ride earthquake simulators, set erosion in motion and look far out into the bay with a powerful telescope from 1,100 feet above sea level. The center of the exhibit is a waterfall that demonstrates how water flows from the Sierra Nevada Mountains to the Bay. Visitors can control where the water goes. There are also hands-on erosion tables, and a 40-foot-long, 6-foothigh, rock compression wall.  

"Real Astronomy Experience," A new exhibit-in-development allowing visitors to use the tools that real astronomers use. Aim a telescope at a virtual sky and operate a remote-controlled telescope to measure a planet.  

"Biology Lab," In the renovated Biology Lab visitors may hold and observe gentle animals. Saturday, Sunday and holidays, 1:30 p.m. to 4 p.m.  

"The Idea Lab," Experiment with some of the basics of math, science and technology through hands-on activities and demonstrations of magnets, spinning and flying, puzzles and nanotechnology.  

"Math Around the World," Play some of the world's most popular math games, such as Hex, Kalah, Game Sticks and Shongo Networks.  

"Math Rules," Use simple and colorful objects to complete interesting challenges in math through predicting, sorting, comparing, weighing and counting.  

"Science on a Sphere," Catch an out-of-this-world experience with an animated globe. See hurricanes form, tsunamis sweep across the oceans and city lights glow around the planet.  

EVENTS --  

$5.50-$10; free children ages 2 and under. Daily, 10 a.m.-5 p.m. University of California, Centennial Drive, Berkeley. (510) 642-5132, www.lawrencehallofscience.org.< 

LINDSAY WILDLIFE MUSEUM This is the oldest and largest wildlife rehabilitation center in America, taking in 6,000 injured and orphaned animals yearly and returning 40 percent of them to the wild. The museum offers a wide range of educational programs using non-releasable wild animals to teach children and adults respect for the balance of nature. The museum includes a state-of-the art wildlife hospital which features a permanent exhibit, titled "Living with Nature,'' which houses 75 non-releasable wild animals in learning environments; a 5,000-square-foot Wildlife Hospital complete with treatment rooms, intensive care, quarantine and laboratory facilities; a 1-acre Nature Garden featuring the region's native landscaping and wildlife; and an "Especially For Children'' exhibit.  

WILDLIFE HOSPITAL -- September-March: 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. The hospital is open daily including holidays to receive injured and orphaned animals. There is no charge for treatment of native wild animals and there are no public viewing areas in the hospital. 

EXHIBITS --  

SPECIAL EVENTS --  

$5-$7; free children under age 2. Wednesdays-Sundays, 10 a.m.-5 p.m. 1931 First Ave., Walnut Creek. (925) 935-1978, www.wildlife-museum.org.< 

MEYERS HOUSE AND GARDEN MUSEUM The Meyers House, erected in 1897, is an example of Colonial Revival, an architectural style popular around the turn of the century. Designed by Henry H. Meyers,the house was built by his father, Jacob Meyers, at a cost of $4000.00. 

EXHIBITS --  

$3. Fourth Saturday of every month. 2021 Alameda Ave., Alameda. (510) 521-1247, www.alamedamuseum.org/meyers.html.< 

MUSEUM OF AFRICAN-AMERICAN TECHNOLOGY SCIENCE VILLAGE A science museum with an African-American focus promoting science education and awareness for the underrepresented. The science village chronicles the technical achievements of people of African descent from ancient ties to present. There are computer classes at the Internet Cafi, science education activities and seminars. There is also a resource library with a collection of books, periodicals and videotapes. 

$4-$6. Monday-Friday, 10 a.m.-5 p.m.; Saturday, noon-6 p.m.; Sunday, 2 p.m.-6 p.m. 630 20th St., Oakland. (510) 893-6426, www.ncalifblackengineers.org.< 

MUSEUM OF CHILDREN'S ART A museum of art for and by children, with activities for children to participate in making their own art.  

ART CAMPS -- Hands-on activities and engaging curriculum for children of different ages, led by professional artists and staff. $60 per day.  

CLASSES -- A Sunday series of classes for children ages 8 to 12, led by Mocha artists. Sundays, 2 p.m. to 4 p.m.  

OPEN STUDIOS -- Drop-in art play activities with new themes each week.  

"Big Studio." Guided art projects for children age 6 and older with a Mocha artist. Tuesday through Friday, 4 p.m. to 5 p.m. $5.  

"Little Studio." A hands-on experience that lets young artists age 18 months to 5 years see, touch and manipulate a variety of media. Children can get messy. Tuesday through Friday, 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. $5.  

"Family Weekend Studios." Drop-in art activities for the whole family. All ages welcome. Saturday and Sunday, noon to 4 p.m. $5 per child.  

FAMILY EXTRAVAGANZAS -- Special weekend workshops for the entire family.  

"Sunday Workshops with Illustrators," Sundays, 1 p.m. See the artwork and meet the artists who create children's book illustrations. Free. 

EVENTS --  

"Saturday Stories," 1 p.m. For children ages 2-5. Free. 

Free gallery admission. Tuesday-Friday, 10 a.m.-5 p.m.; Saturday-Sunday, noon-5 p.m. 538 Ninth St., Oakland. (510) 465-8770, www.mocha.org.< 

PACIFIC PINBALL MUSEUM  

OPENING -- "Pinball Fantasies," May 7 through June 30. Exhibition features works by Shane Pickerill.  

1510 Webster St., Alameda. www.pacificpinball.org.< 

PARDEE HOME MUSEUM The historic Pardee Mansion, a three-story Italianate villa built in 1868, was home to three generations of the Pardee family who were instrumental in the civic and cultural development of California and Oakland. The home includes the house, grounds, water tower and barn. Reservations recommended. 

EVENTS --  

$5; free children ages 12 and under. House Tours: Monday-Saturday, 10 a.m.-4 p.m.; Sundays by appointment. 672 11th St., Oakland. (510) 444-2187, www.pardeehome.org.< 

SAN LEANDRO HISTORY MUSEUM AND ART GALLERY The museum showcases local and regional history and serves as a centerpiece for community cultural activity. There are exhibits on Ohlone settlements, farms of early settlers, and contributions of Portuguese and other immigrants. There will also be exhibits of the city's agricultural past and the industrial development of the 19th century.  

ONGOING EXHIBIT --  

"Yema/Po Archeological Site at Lake Chabot," An exhibit highlighting artifacts uncovered from a work camp of Chinese laborers, featuring photomurals, cutouts and historical photographs. 

Free. Thursday-Sunday, 11 a.m.-3 p.m. 320 West Estudillo Ave., San Leandro. (510) 577-3990, www.ci.sanleandro. ca.us/sllibrarymuseum.html.< 

SHADELANDS RANCH HISTORICAL MUSEUM Built by Walnut Creek pioneer Hiram Penniman, this 1903 redwood-framed house is a showcase for numerous historical artifacts, many of which belonged to the Pennimans. It also houses a rich archive of Contra Costa and Walnut Creek history in its collections of old newspapers, photographs and government records. 

EXHIBITS --  

$1-$3; free-children under age 6. Wednesday and Sunday, 1 p.m.-4 p.m.; Closed in January. 2660 Ygnacio Valley Road, Walnut Creek. (925) 935-7871, www.ci.walnut-creek.ca.us.< 

SMITH MUSEUM OF ANTHROPOLOGY AT CALIFORNIA STATE UNIVERSITY, HAYWARD The museum houses significant collections of archaeological and ethnographic specimens from Africa, Asia and North America and small collections from Central and South America. The museum offers opportunities and materials for student research and internships in archaeology and ethnology. 

SPECIAL EXHIBITS --  

Free. Monday-Friday, 10 a.m.-4 p.m. Meiklejohn Hall, Fourth Floor, 25800 Carlos Bee Blvd., Hayward. (510) 885-3104, (510) 885-7414, www.isis.csuhayward.edu/cesmith/acesmith.html.< 

UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, BERKELEY HEARST MUSEUM OF ANTHROPOLOGY  

ONGOING EXHIBITS --  

"Native California Cultures," This is an exhibit of some 500 artifacts from the museum's California collections, the largest and most comprehensive collections in the world devoted to California Indian cultures. The exhibit includes a section about Ishi, the famous Indian who lived and worked with the museum, Yana tribal baskets and a 17-foot Yurok canoe carved from a single redwood.  

"Recent Acquisitions," The collection includes Yoruba masks and carvings from Africa, early-20th-century Taiwanese hand puppets, textiles from the Americas and 19th- and 20th-century Tibetan artifacts.  

"From the Maker's Hand: Selections from the Permanent Collection," This exhibit explores human ingenuity in the living and historical cultures of China, Africa, Egypt, Peru, North America and the Meditteranean. 

$1-$4; free for children ages 12 and under; free to all on Thursdays. Wednesday-Saturday, 10 a.m.-4:30 p.m.; Sunday, noon-4:30 p.m. 103 Kroeber Hall, Bancroft Way and College Avenue, Berkeley. (510) 643-7648, www.hearstmuseum.berkeley.edu.< 

UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, BERKELEY MUSEUM OF PALEONTOLOGY  

ONGOING EXHIBITS --  

"Tyrannosaurus Rex," A 20-foot-tall, 40-foot-long replica of the fearsome dinosaur. The replica is made from casts of bones of the most complete T. Rex skeleton yet excavated. When unearthed in Montana, the bones were all lying in place with only a small piece of the tailbone missing.  

"Pteranodon," A suspended skeleton of a flying reptile with a wingspan of 22 to 23 feet. The Pteranodon lived at the same time as the dinosaurs.  

"California Fossils Exhibit," An exhibit of some of the fossils that have been excavated in California. 

Free. During semester sessions, hours generally are: Monday-Thursday, 8 a.m.-10 p.m.; Friday, 8 a.m.-5 p.m.; Saturday, 10 a.m.-5 p.m.; Sunday, 1 p.m.-10 p.m. Hours vary during summer and holidays. Lobby, 1101 Valley Life Sciences Building, #4780, University of California, Berkeley. (510) 642-1821, www.ucmp.berkeley.edu.< 

USS HORNET MUSEUM Come aboard this World War II aircraft carrier that has been converted into a floating museum. The Hornet, launched in 1943, is 899 feet long and 27 stories high. During World War II she was never hit by an enemy strike or plane and holds the Navy record for number of enemy planes shot down in a week. In 1969 the Hornet recovered the Apollo 11 space capsule containing the first men to walk on the moon, and later recovered Apollo 12. In 1991 the Hornet was designated a National Historic Landmark and is now docked at the same pier she sailed from in 1944. Today, visitors can tour the massive ship, view World War II-era warplanes and experience a simulated aircraft launch from the carrier's deck. Exhibits are being added on an ongoing basis. Allow two to three hours for a visit. Wear comfortable shoes and be prepared to climb steep stairs or ladders. Dress in layers as the ship can be cold. Arrive no later than 2 p.m. to sign up for the engine room and other docent-led tours. Children under age 12 are not allowed in the Engine Room or the Combat Information Center.  

ONGOING EVENTS --  

"Limited Access Day," Due to ship maintenance, tours of the navigation bridge and the engine room are not available. Tuesdays.  

"Flight Deck Fun," A former Landing Signal Officer will show children how to bring in a fighter plane for a landing on the deck then let them try the signals themselves. Times vary. Free with regular Museum admission.  

"Protestant Divine Services," Hornet chaplain John Berger conducts church services aboard The Hornet in the Wardroom Lounge. Everyone is welcome and refreshments are served immediately following the service. Sundays, 11 a.m. 

SPECIAL EVENTS -- Closed on New Year's Day. 

"Family Day," Discounted admission for families of four with a further discount for additional family members. Access to some of the areas may be limited due to ship maintenance. Every Tuesday. $20 for family of four; $5 for each additional family member. 

"Living Ship Day," Experience an aircraft carrier in action, with simulated flight operations as aircraft are lifted to the flight deck and placed in launch position. Some former crewmembers will be on hand. 

"Flashlight Tour," Receive a special tour of areas aboard the ship that have not yet been opened to the public or that have limited access during the day. 

"Heroes of the Pacific," May 16, 3:30 p.m.-8 p.m. The USS Hornet pays tribute to the soldiers who survived the desperate days of the Pacific Campaign with a screening of the finale of the HBO miniseries "The Pacific,'' along with guest speakers, including some of the Hornet's very own World War II veteran crew who will share their experiences. 

$6-$14; free children age 4 and under with a paying adult. Daily, 10 a.m.-4 p.m. Pier 3 (enter on Atlantic Avenue), Alameda Point, Alameda. (510) 521-8448, www.uss-hornet.org.<

ASHKENAZ  

"I Like My Bike Night," First Friday of the month, 9 p.m. This monthly series brings bicycle innovators, enthusiasts, artists and organizations together under one roof, as well as encourages regular Ashkenaz show-goers to leave their cars in the driveway and arrive at the venue by bicycle instead. $8-$25.  

1317 San Pablo Ave., Berkeley. (510) 525-5054, www.ashkenaz.com.< 

BAY AREA FREE BOOK EXCHANGE  

"Free Books," Saturday and Sunday, 9 a.m.-6 p.m. Donate your unwanted books and receive new titles for free.  

10520 San Pablo Ave., El Cerrito. (510) 526-1941, www.bayareafreebookexchange.com.< 

CALIFORNIA GENEALOGICAL SOCIETY AND LIBRARY  

"California Genealogical Society and Library Free First Saturday," 10 a.m.-4 p.m. Event takes place on the first Saturday of every month, 10 a.m.-4 p.m. Trace and compile your family history at this month's open house event. Free. www.calgensoc.org. 

2201 Broadway, Suite LL2, Oakland. (510) 663-1358.< 

CALIFORNIA MAGIC THEATER  

"Dinner Theater Magic Show," Friday-Saturday, 7:30 p.m. Enter the joyous and bewildering world of illusions and magic while chowing down on a home cooked meal. Each weekend features different professional magicians. Recommended for ages 13 and older. $54-$64 includes meal.  

729 Castro St., Martinez. (925) 374-0056, www.calmagic.com.< 

CHABOT SPACE AND SCIENCE CENTER State-of-the-art facility unifying science education activities around astronomy. Enjoy interactive exhibits, hands-on activities, indoor stargazing, outdoor telescope viewing and films. 

Center Admission: $9-$13; free children under 3; Movies and evening planetarium shows: $6-$8. Telescope viewing only: free. Wednesday-Thursday, 10 a.m.-5 p.m.; Friday-Saturday, 10 a.m.-10 p.m.; Sunday, 11 a.m.-5 p.m. 10000 Skyline Blvd., Oakland. (510) 336-7300, www.chabotspace.org.< 

DUNSMUIR HOUSE AND GARDENS HISTORIC ESTATE Nestled in the Oakland hills, the 50-acre Dunsmuir House and Gardens estate includes the 37-room Neoclassical Revival Dunsmuir Mansion, built by coal and lumber baron Alexander Dunsmuir for his bride. Restored outbuildings set amid landscaped gardens surround the mansion.  

ESTATE GROUNDS -- Self-Guided Grounds Tours are available yearround. The 50 acres of gardens and grounds at the mansion are open to the public for walking Tuesday-Friday, 9 a.m.-4 p.m. Booklets and maps of the grounds are available at the Dinkelspiel House. Free.  

GUIDED TOURS -- Docent-led tours are available on the first Sunday of each month at 1 p.m. and 2 p.m. (except for July) and Wednesdays at 11 a.m. $5 adults, $4 seniors and juniors (11-16), children 11 and under free. 

Dunsmuir House and Gardens, 2960 Peralta Oaks Court, Oakland. (510) 615-5555, www.dunsmuir.org.< 

FRANK OGAWA PLAZA  

"Oakland Artisan Marketplace," Fridays, 10 a.m.-4 p.m. The City of Oakland and Cultural Arts & Marketing Department presents a weekly market featuring fine arts and crafts of local artists. Free. (510) 238-4948, www.oaklandartisanmarketplace.org. 

14th Street and Broadway, Oakland. < 

JACK LONDON AQUATIC CENTER  

"Oakland Artisan Marketplace,"' Saturdays, 11 a.m.-6 p.m.; Sundays, 10 a.m.-4 p.m. The City of Oakland and Cultural Arts & Marketing Department presents a weekly market featuring fine arts and crafts of local artists. Free. (510) 238-4948, www.oaklandartisanmarketplace.org. 

115 Embarcadero, Oakland. < 

JC CELLARS  

"Spring Fling," May 15, 6:30-10:30 p.m. Venture off the island for a night of art, wine, music, food and fun. $25-$30.  

55 Fourth St., Oakland. (510) 465-5900.< 

LAWRENCE HALL OF SCIENCE  

"Mysteries of Missing Matter," Investigate the complexity of the universe and learn why astronomers now think that most of the matter in our universe mysteriously invisible to us. 

$5.50-$10; free children ages 2 and under. Daily, 10 a.m.-5 p.m. University of California, Centennial Drive, Berkeley. (510) 642-5132, www.lawrencehallofscience.org.< 

MARSTON CAMPBELL PARK  

"Spring Into the Garden," May 8, 1-5 p.m. Event combines fun activities, nutrition, farming-related themes and lots of digging in the dirt.  

Market and 16th St., Oakland. www.obugs.org.< 

UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, BERKELEY PACIFIC FILM ARCHIVE Exploring cinema from the Bay Area and cultures around the world, the Pacific Film Archive offers daily film screenings, including rare and rediscovered prints of movie classics; new and historic works by world famous directors; restored silent films with live musical accompaniment; retrospectives; and new and experimental works. Check Web site for a full schedule of films.  

"First Impressions: Free First Thursdays," first Thursday of every month. Special tours and movie presentations. Admission is free. 

Single feature: $5-$8; Double feature: $9-$12 general. PFA Theater, 2575 Bancroft Way, Berkeley. (510) 642-5249, www.bampfa.berkeley.edu.< 

UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, BERKELEY, MORRISON LIBRARY  

"Lunch Poems," First Thursday of the month, 12:10-12:50 p.m.  

2600 Bancroft Way, Berkeley. (510) 642-3671.< 

USS HORNET MUSEUM Come aboard this World War II aircraft carrier that has been converted into a floating museum. The Hornet, launched in 1943, is 899 feet long and 27 stories high. During World War II she was never hit by an enemy strike or plane and holds the Navy record for number of enemy planes shot down in a week. In 1969 the Hornet recovered the Apollo 11 space capsule containing the first men to walk on the moon, and later recovered Apollo 12. In 1991 the Hornet was designated a National Historic Landmark and is now docked at the same pier she sailed from in 1944. Today, visitors can tour the massive ship, view World War II-era warplanes and experience a simulated aircraft launch from the carrier's deck. Exhibits are being added on an ongoing basis. Allow two to three hours for a visit. Wear comfortable shoes and be prepared to climb steep stairs or ladders. Dress in layers as the ship can be cold. Arrive no later than 2 p.m. to sign up for the engine room and other docent-led tours. Children under age 12 are not allowed in the Engine Room or the Combat Information Center.  

$6-$14; free children age 4 and under with a paying adult. Daily, 10 a.m.-4 p.m. Pier 3 (enter on Atlantic Avenue), Alameda Point, Alameda. (510) 521-8448, www.uss-hornet.org.<

ARDENWOOD HISTORIC FARM Ardenwood farm is a working farm that dates back to the time of the Patterson Ranch, a 19th-century estate with a mansion and Victorian Gardens. Today, the farm still practices farming techniques from the 1870s. Unless otherwise noted, programs are free with regular admission.  

ONGOING PROGRAMS --  

"Blacksmithing," Thursday, Friday and Sunday, 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Watch a blacksmith turn iron into useful tools.  

"Horse-Drawn Train," Thursday, Friday and Sunday. A 20-minute ride departs from Ardenwood Station and Deer Park.  

"Animal Feeding," Thursday-Sunday, 3-4 p.m. Help slop the hogs, check the henhouse for eggs and bring hay to the livestock.  

"Victorian Flower Arranging," Thursday, 10:15-11:30 a.m. Watch as Ardenwood docents create floral works of art for display in the Patterson House.  

SPECIAL EVENTS --  

"Horse-Drawn Train Rides," Thursday, Friday and Sunday, 10:15 a.m.-3:30 p.m. Meet Jigs or Tucker the Belgian Draft horses that pull Ardenwood's train. Check the daily schedule and meet the train at Ardenwood Station or Deer Park. 

"Country Kitchen Cookin'," Sundays, 10:30 a.m.-2 p.m. Enjoy the flavor of the past with treats cooked on Ardenwood's wood burning stove. Sample food grown on the farm and discover the history of your favorite oldtime snacks. 

"Animal Feeding," Thursday-Sunday, 3 p.m. Feed the pigs, check for eggs and bring hay to the livestock. 

"Toddler Time," Tuesdays, 11-11:30 a.m. Bring the tiny tots out for an exciting morning at the farm. Meet and learn all about a new animal friend through stories, chores and fun.  

"Potato Harvesting," Learn the spectacular history of this New World native as you dig with your spade and help find the spuds. 

"What's the Cluck About," May 8, 1-2 p.m. Learn about fine feathered friends and make a craft. 

Lambs, Kids and Piglets -- Oh My,'' May 8 and May 29, 11 a.m-noon. Learn farm animal facts on a morning stroll. 

"Old-Fashioned Games," May 9, 2-3 p.m. Try walking on stilts, marbles and jacks or compete in a sack race. 

"Tussie-Mussie for Mom," May 9, 1:30-2:30 p.m. Select flowers for a special mother's day message. 

"Zainy Brainy Weather Vaynes," May 9, 11:30-12:30 p.m. Make your own unique weather vane. 

"Hay Hoisting," May 9 and May 30, 2:30-3 p.m. Make rope and help hoist hay bales. 

"Flower Pressing Perfection," May 9, 12:30-1:30 p.m. Learn how to preserve precious petals by making flower presses. 

"Kids and Lambs," May 9, 10:30-11:30 a.m. Learn to tell breeds of sheep and goats apart. 

"Cool Crisp Kites," May 15, 1:30-2:30 p.m. Learn how to make your own kite and navigate it. 

"Barnyard Buddies," May 15, 11 a.m. Feed the goats a snack and more. 

"April Showers Bring May Herbs and Flowers," May 15, 12:30-1:30 p.m. Read a story about nature and plant your own herb or flower and watch it grow. 

"Excellent Eggshells," May 16, 11 a.m.-noon. Use eggshells as flowerpots for seedlings. 

"Play With Dough," May 16, Noon-1 p.m. Discover the fun of kneading pretzels. 

"Hooray for Honeybees," May 16, Noon-1 p.m. Discover how special these insects are. 

$1-$5; free children under age 4. Tuesday-Sunday, 10 a.m.-4 p.m. 34600 Ardenwood Blvd., Fremont. (510) 796-0199, (510) 796-0663, www.ebparks.org.< 

BAY POINT LIBRARY  

"Monthly Craft Night," Last Friday of every month, 4-5 p.m. Each month features a different themed craft.  

Riverview Middle School, 205 Pacifica Ave., Pittsburg. (925) 458-9597.< 

BLACK DIAMOND MINES REGIONAL PRESERVE Originally the home of several Native American tribes, white men began coal mining in the area in the 1860s. The preserve today features old mines and displays of the history of the area. 

SPECIAL EVENTS --  

"Prospect Tunnel Picnic," May 8, 9 a.m.-noon. Carpool to the eastern reaches of the park to take a trip underground to see late bloomers. 

"Painting in the Park," May 9, 10-11:30 a.m. Gather various minerals and elemtns and turn them into art. 

"The Old Fashioned Cemetery," May 15, 10 a.m.-noon. View a nineteenth century burial grounds. 

Free unless otherwise noted; $5 seasonal parking fee on weekends. Daily, 8 a.m. to dusk Somersville Road, about five miles south of state Highway 4, Antioch. Information: (925) 757-2620, Tickets: (925) 555-1212, www.ebparks.org.< 

BLACKHAWK MUSEUM  

AUTOMOTIVE MUSEUM -- The museum's permanent exhibition of internationally renowned automobiles dated from 1897 to the 1980s. The cars are displayed as works of art with room to walk completely around each car to admire the workmanship. On long-term loan from the Smithsonian Institution is a Long Steam Tricycle; an 1893-94 Duryea, the first Duryea built by the Duryea brothers; and a 1948 Tucker, number 39 of the 51 Tuckers built, which is a Model 48 "Torpedo'' four-door sedan.  

ONGOING EXHIBITS --  

"International Automotive Treasures," An ever-changing exhibit featuring over 90 automobiles.  

"A Journey on Common Ground," An exhibit of moving photographs, video and art objects from around the world exploring the causes of disability and the efforts of the Wheelchair Foundation to provide a wheelchair for every person in need who cannot afford one.  

ONGOING EVENT --  

Free Public Tours, Saturday and Sunday, 2 p.m. Docent-led guided tours of the museum's exhibitions. 

$5-$8; free for children ages 6 and under. Wednesday-Sunday, 10 a.m.-5 p.m. 3700 Blackhawk Plaza Circle, Danville. (925) 736-2280, (925) 736-2277, www.blackhawkmuseum.org.< 

BUILD-A-BEAR WORKSHOP An interactive place where children, and adults, can learn how a stuffed animal is made, then choose an animal pattern from the offering of bears, elephants, dogs and rabbits; stuff the chosen animal; dress it; and create a birth certificate. Closed on Thanksgiving and Christmas. 

$10-$25; clothing and accessories extra. Mondays-Fridays, 10 a.m.-9 p.m.; Saturdays, 10 a.m.-7 p.m.; Sundays, 11 a.m.-6 p.m. Broadway Plaza, 1248 Broadway, Walnut Creek. (925) 946-4697, www.buildabear.com.< 

CHABOT SPACE AND SCIENCE CENTER State-of-the-art facility unifying science education activities around astronomy. Enjoy interactive exhibits, hands-on activities, indoor stargazing, outdoor telescope viewing and films. 

ASK JEEVES PLANETARIUM -- The planetarium features one of the most advanced star projectors in the world. A daily planetarium show is included with general admission. Call for current show schedule.  

"Space NOW!", Each week, this real-time ride through constellations, stars, and planets will reflect current happenings in our sky. Space NOW! will also tie in activities going on throughout the center. This is Chabot's first daytime guided tour of the universe. 

"Tales Of The Maya Skies," "Tales of the Maya Skies'' is a new full-dome planetarium show that explores the cosmology of the ancient Maya, along with their culture and their contributions to astronomy. Starts November 21. 

"Black Holes: The Other Side of Infinity," Take a ride to the inside of a massive black hole and learn about the latest scientific evidence, which suggests that black holes are real. Narrated by Liam Neeson. Suitable for age 12 and older. Free with General Admission ticket. 

"Immersive Space: Fly Through the Cosmos," Fridays, 8 p.m. Experience the "digital universe'' in a new full-dome system. Travel to the nearest star and beyond in seconds. 

"Sunshine," A 15-minute planetarium show for children ages 5 and under. In the show, Sunshine, a lovable animated cartoon of the Sun, urges the children to sing and play along with his tricks. In the process, he introduces the colors of the day sky and the other suns of the night sky. Free with regular general admission. 

"Secret of the Cardboard Rocket," Take a journey through the solar system with two young adventurers who turn an old cardboard box into a rocket. Recommended for ages 5-10. 

"The Search for Life: Are We Alone?" A voyage from the ocean deep to the outer reaches of the cosmos in search of life, narrated by Harrison Ford. 

"The Sky Tonight," Saturdays, 8 p.m. Take a live tour of the starry sky overhead on the night of your visit. The show includes a look at constellations, planets and special celestial objects. 

"Sonic Vision," Friday-Saturday, 9:15 p.m. This show uses the latest digital technology to illuminate the planetarium with colorful computer-generated imagery set to today's popular music, including Radiohead, U2, David Bowie, Coldplay, Moby and more. 

"Astronaut," What does it take to be part of the exploration of space? Experience a rocket launch from inside the body of an astronaut. Explore the amazing worlds of inner and outer space, from floating around the International Space Station to maneuvering through microscopic regions of the human body. Narrated by Ewan McGregor. 25 min. 

SPECIAL EVENTS --  

"Space Day," May 8, 11 a.m.-5 p.m. Chabot's Space Day celebration will include activities and demonstrations, along with "public missions'' in the Challenger Learning Center. $5-$10 for "Missions'' 

"Make Mother's Day Bloom," May 9, 10:30 a.m.-2:30 p.m. Join Chabot to celebrate moms and Mother Nature, and have a photo taken in the "Beyond Blastoff'' exhibit, then craft the picture into flower pots. Before the workshop, treat mom to brunch in the Starlite Bistro. Reservations required. $10 per child (510) 336-7373. 

SPECIAL EXHIBITS --  

"Chabot Observatories: A View to the Stars," This new permanent exhibit honors the 123-year history of Chabot and its telescopes. The observatory is one of the oldest public observatories in the United States. The exhibit covers the three different sites of the observatory over its history as well as how its historic telescopes continue to be operated today. Included are informative graphic panels, multimedia kiosks, interactive computer programs, hands-on stations, and historic artifacts. 

TIEN MEGADOME SCIENCE THEATER -- A 70-foot dome-screen auditorium. Show times subject to change. Call for current show schedule. Price with paid general admission is $6-$7. Theater only: $7-$8. (510) 336-7373, www.ticketweb.com. 

"The Human Body," This show explores the daily biological processes that go on in the human body without our control and often without our notice. This amazing story is revealed in detail on the giant screen. 

"Dinosaurs Alive," A global adventure of science and discovery, featuring the earliest dinosaurs of the Triassic Period to the monsters of the Cretaceous, "reincarnated" life-sized for the giant screen. Audiences will journey with some of the world's preeminent paleontologists as they uncover evidence that the descendents of dinosaurs still walk (or fly) among us. From the exotic, trackless expanses and sand dunes of Mongolia's Gobi Desert to the dramatic sandstone buttes of New Mexico, the film will follow American Museum of Natural History (AMNH) paleontologists as they explore some of the greatest dinosaur finds in history. 

"Forces of Nature," This film showcases the awesome spectacle of earthquakes, volcanoes, and severe storms as scientists continue their quests to understand how these natural disasters are triggered. 

"The Living Sea," The film celebrates the beauty, power and importance of the ocean. Produced in association with The National Maritime Center, the Ocean Film Network and Dr. Robert Ballard. 

"Cosmic Voyage," A breathtaking journey through time and space. Zoom from the surface of the Earth to the largest observable structures of the Universe and back down to the sub-nuclear realm, a guided tour across some 42 orders of magnitude. Explore some of the greatest scientific theories, many of which have never before been visualized on film. 

Center Admission: $9-$13; free children under 3; Movies and evening planetarium shows: $6-$8. Telescope viewing only: free. Wednesday-Thursday, 10 a.m.-5 p.m.; Friday-Saturday, 10 a.m.-10 p.m.; Sunday, 11 a.m.-5 p.m. 10000 Skyline Blvd., Oakland. (510) 336-7300, www.chabotspace.org.< 

CHILDREN'S FAIRYLAND A fairy tale theme park featuring more than 30 colorful fantasy sets. Designed especially for children ages 10 and under, there are gentle rides, a train, the "Peter Rabbit Village,'' puppet shows, story-telling and lots of slides and animals. Admission price includes unlimited rides, special shows, guest entertainers and puppet shows.  

OLD WEST JUNCTION -- Children's Fairyland's newest attraction is a Wild West-themed town sized just for children, with a livery stable, bank, jail and a water tower slide.  

PUPPET SHOWS -- Saturday and Sunday, 11 a.m., 2 p.m. and 4 p.m. All shows are at the Open Storybook Theatre. Free with regular Fairyland admission.  

ARTS AND CRAFTS CENTER -- Activities on Saturday and Sunday, noon to 3 p.m.  

ANIMAL OF THE DAY -- Saturday and Sunday, 1-1:20 p.m. at the Humpty Dumpty Wall. Learn about one of Fairyland's animal friends. 

SPECIAL EVENTS --  

"Animal of the Day!" Saturdays and Sundays, 1-1:20 p.m. Come up close and learn about Fairyland's creatures. 

"Arts and Crafts," Noon-3 p.m. Event features arts and crafts projects for children and their families. $6. 

"Puppet Show: Perez and Mondinga," through May 2 and May 8 through May 2, 11 a.m., 2 and 4 p.m. It's fiesta time in Mexico. Mondinga, the cockroach, wants to marry and share her hacienda with someone special. Rooster, Pig and evil Cat all want to marry her, yet none is right. Finally she meets Perez the gentle mouse and marries him. This is the silly story of their meeting, marriage and mishaps, just in time for Cinco De Mayo! Ole'!Scenery & Puppets by Lewis Mahlmann  

"The Blue Fairy," May 8 through May 9, 1:30 and 2:30 p.m. Jacquelyn Lynaugh as The Blue Fairy appears with her puppet pal Pinocchio and her guitar, Prince Charming. She will be performing well known folk songs and helping children make wishes come true with her crystal wand and fairy dust.  

$6; free for children under age 1; $2 for a Magic Key. No adult admitted without a child and no child admitted without an adult. Summer (June through Labor Day): Monday through Friday, 10 a.m. to 4 p.m.; Saturday and Sunday, 10 a.m. to 5 p.m.; Fall and Spring: Wednesday through Sunday, 10 a.m. to 4 p.m.; Winter: Friday through Sunday, 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. CLOSED DEC. 25-JAN. 4. 699 Bellevue Ave., Oakland. (510) 452-2259, www.fairyland.org.< 

COYOTE HILLS REGIONAL PARK The park is located on the shoreline of Fremont Bay and features rich wetland areas as well as Ohlone Indian shellmound sites. Hiking in the park allows scenic views of San Francisco Bay and southern Alameda County. The 12-mile Alameda Creek Trail runs from the Bay east to the mouth of Niles Canyon and features an equestrian trail as well as a bicycle trail; hikers are welcome on both. The park conducts naturalist programs and has a visitor center with a nature store and Ohlone, natural history and wildlife exhibits.  

SPECIAL EVENTS -- Free unless otherwise noted.  

"Do Butterflies and Bees Have Knees," May 8, 10:30 a.m.-12:30 p.m. Observe these animals as they are absorbed with feeding. 

"Focus on Wildlife: A Photo Exhibit," May 9, 10:30 a.m.-noon. View the best of Coyote Hills wildlife photographs. 

"Lends on Wildlife: Tips and Tricks," May 9, 1-2:30 p.m. Join experienced photographers in the nectar garden to learn tips and tricks for capturing stunning photos of birds and butterflies. 

"Coyote Cubs," May 11, 10-11:30 a.m. Encourage your child's "wild'' side and join the fun. 

"Nature Bytes for Busy Families," May 15, 2-3 p.m. Get to know the natural world with activities. 

"Shutterbugs," May 15, 10 a.m.-noon. Learn to photograph bugs and other natural wonders. 

"Reptiles With Styles," May 16, 11 a.m.-noon. Get up-close and personal with reptiles. 

"Animal Defenses," May 16, 1:30-2:30 p.m. Learn about how animals protect themselves. 

Free unless otherwise noted; A parking fee may be charged. Registration required for events. April through October: daily, 8 a.m. to 8 p.m.; October through April, 8 a.m. to 6 p.m., unless otherwise posted. 8000 Patterson Pass Road, Fremont. (510) 636-1684, (510) 795-9385, www.ebparks.org.< 

CRAB COVE VISITOR CENTER At Crab Cove, you can see live underwater creatures and go into the San Francisco Bay from land. You can also travel back in time to Alameda's part. The goal is to increase understanding of the environmental importance of San Francisco Bay and the ocean ecosystem. Crab Cove's Indoor Aquarium and Exhibit Lab is one of the largest indoor aquariums in the East Bay. 

SPECIAL EVENTS --  

"Sea Siblings," Tuesdays, 9:30 a.m. and 11 a.m. Explore the natural world and take part in a theme related craft. Designed for the 3-5 year old learner. Registration is required. $4. (888) 327-2757. 

"Catch of the Day," Sundays, 2-3 p.m. Drop by to find out more about the Bay and its wildlife through guided exploration and hands-on fun. 

"Sea Squirts," 10-11:30 a.m. and 11 a.m.-12:30 p.m. Discover the wonders of nature with your little one. Registration is required. $6-$8. 

"Concerts at the Cove," May 14, 5:30-7:30 p.m. Celebrate with free music and family fun. 

"Native Plant Gardening," May 15, 3-5 p.m. Spend an afternoon planting in the Visitor Center. 

Free unless otherwise noted; parking fee may be charged. 1252 McKay Ave., Alameda. (510) 521-6887, www.ebparks.org.< 

DUNSMUIR HOUSE AND GARDENS HISTORIC ESTATE Nestled in the Oakland hills, the 50-acre Dunsmuir House and Gardens estate includes the 37-room Neoclassical Revival Dunsmuir Mansion, built by coal and lumber baron Alexander Dunsmuir for his bride. Restored outbuildings set amid landscaped gardens surround the mansion.  

ESTATE GROUNDS -- Self-Guided Grounds Tours are available yearround. The 50 acres of gardens and grounds at the mansion are open to the public for walking Tuesday-Friday, 9 a.m.-4 p.m. Booklets and maps of the grounds are available at the Dinkelspiel House. Free.  

GUIDED TOURS -- Docent-led tours are available on the first Sunday of each month at 1 p.m. and 2 p.m. (except for July) and Wednesdays at 11 a.m. $5 adults, $4 seniors and juniors (11-16), children 11 and under free. 

Dunsmuir House and Gardens, 2960 Peralta Oaks Court, Oakland. (510) 615-5555, www.dunsmuir.org.< 

FOREST HOME FARMS The 16-acre former farm of the Boone family is now a municipal historic park in San Ramon. It is located at the base of the East Bay Hills and is divided into two parts by Oak Creek. The Boone House is a 22-room Dutch colonial that has been remodeled several times since it was built in 1900. Also on the property are a barn built in the period from 1850 to 1860; the Victorian-style David Glass House, dating from the late 1860s to early 1870s; a storage structure for farm equipment and automobiles; and a walnut processing plant. 

Free unless otherwise noted. Public tours available by appointment. 19953 San Ramon Valley Blvd., San Ramon. (925) 973-3281, www.ci.sanramon.ca.us/parks/boone.htm.< 

HAYWARD SHORELINE INTERPRETIVE CENTER Perched on stilts above a salt marsh, the Center offers an introduction to the San Francisco Bay-Estuary. It features exhibits, programs and activities designed to inspire a sense of appreciation, respect and stewardship for the Bay, its inhabitants and the services they provide. The Habitat Room offers a preview of what may be seen outside. The 80-gallon Bay Tank contains some of the fish that live in the Bay's open waters, and the Channel Tank represents habitats formed by the maze of sloughs and creeks that snake through the marsh. The main room of the Center features rotating exhibits about area history, plants and wildlife. Part of the Hayward Area Recreation and Park District.  

ONGOING EXHIBIT --  

"Exploring Nature," An exhibit of Shawn Gould's illustrations featuring images of the natural world. 

SPECIAL EVENTS --  

"Weekend Weed Warriors," 1-4 p.m. Help the shoreline to eliminate the non-native plants that threaten its diversity. Ages 12 and older. Registration required. 

"Nature Detectives," 11 a.m.-noon. An introduction and exploration of the world of Black-Crowned Night-Herons. Ages 3-5 and their caregivers. Registration required. 

"Waterfowl of the Freshwater Marsh," 10 a.m.-1 p.m. Join an expert birder to go "behind the gates'' to areas of the marsh that are not open to the public. 

Free. Saturday and Sunday, 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. 4901 Breakwater Ave., Hayward. (510) 670-7270, www.hard.dst.ca.us/hayshore.html.< 

JEWISH COMMUNITY CENTER OF THE EAST BAY  

"Shabbat Celebration for Young Children," Saturday, 10:30 a.m.-noon. Join other families with young children to sharethis weekly Jewish holiday of joy and renewal.  

1414 Walnut St., Berkeley. (510) 848-0237, www.jcceastbay.org/.< 

JUNIOR CENTER OF ART AND SCIENCE A center dedicated to encouraging children's active wonder and creative response through artistic and scientific exploration of their natural urban environment. The center's classes, workshops, exhibits and events integrate art and science.  

EXHIBITS -- Three educational exhibits are mounted in the "Children's Gallery'' each year. A docent-led tour, demonstrations, hands-on activities and art projects are available to school groups throughout the year.  

"Jake's Discovery Garden," Jake's Discovery Garden is a new interactive studio exhibit designed for preschool-aged children and their adult caregivers that teaches young visitors about the natural environments found in their backyards, playgrounds and neighborhoods. 

SPECIAL EVENTS --  

Free; programs and special exhibits have a fee. September through May: Tuesday through Friday, 10 a.m. to 6 p.m.; Saturday, 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. June through August: Monday through Thursday, 8:30 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. 558 Bellevue Ave., Oakland. (510) 839-5777, www.juniorcenter.org.< 

LAKE CHABOT REGIONAL PARK The 315-acre lake offers year-round recreation. Services include canoe and boat rental, horseshoe pits, hiking, bicycling, picnicking and seasonal tours aboard the Chabot Queen. For boat rentals, call (510) 247-2526. 

Free unless noted otherwise; $5 parking; $2 per dog except guide/service dogs. Daily, 6 a.m. to 9 p.m. 17930 Lake Chabot Road, Castro Valley. (510) 562-PARK, www.ebparks.org.< 

LAWRENCE HALL OF SCIENCE  

ONGOING EXHIBITS --  

"NanoZone," Discover the science of the super-small: nanotechnology. Through hands-on activities and games, explore this microworld and the scientific discoveries made in this area.  

"Forces That Shape the Bay," A science park that shows and explains why the San Francisco Bay is the way it is, with information on water, erosion, plate tectonics and mountain building. You can ride earthquake simulators, set erosion in motion and look far out into the bay with a powerful telescope from 1,100 feet above sea level. The center of the exhibit is a waterfall that demonstrates how water flows from the Sierra Nevada Mountains to the Bay. Visitors can control where the water goes. There are also hands-on erosion tables, and a 40-foot-long, 6-foothigh, rock compression wall.  

"Real Astronomy Experience," A new exhibit-in-development allowing visitors to use the tools that real astronomers use. Aim a telescope at a virtual sky and operate a remote-controlled telescope to measure a planet.  

"Biology Lab," In the renovated Biology Lab visitors may hold and observe gentle animals. Saturday, Sunday and holidays, 1:30 p.m. to 4 p.m.  

"The Idea Lab," Experiment with some of the basics of math, science and technology through hands-on activities and demonstrations of magnets, spinning and flying, puzzles and nanotechnology.  

"Math Around the World," Play some of the world's most popular math games, such as Hex, Kalah, Game Sticks and Shongo Networks.  

"Math Rules," Use simple and colorful objects to complete interesting challenges in math through predicting, sorting, comparing, weighing and counting.  

HOLT PLANETARIUM Shows on Saturdays and Sundays. Programs recommended for ages 6 and up unless otherwise noted. $2.50-$3 in addition to general admission.  

"Constellations Tonight," Learn to identify the most prominent constellations of the season in the planetarium sky with a simple star map. 

"Mysteries of Missing Matter," Investigate the complexity of the universe and learn why astronomers now think that most of the matter in our universe mysteriously invisible to us. 

"Journey to the Moon," Experience a time traveler's view of the changing shapes of the moon as it waxes and wanes in the planetarium. Ages 4-7. 

$5.50-$10; free children ages 2 and under. Daily, 10 a.m.-5 p.m. University of California, Centennial Drive, Berkeley. (510) 642-5132, www.lawrencehallofscience.org.< 

LINDSAY WILDLIFE MUSEUM This is the oldest and largest wildlife rehabilitation center in America, taking in 6,000 injured and orphaned animals yearly and returning 40 percent of them to the wild. The museum offers a wide range of educational programs using non-releasable wild animals to teach children and adults respect for the balance of nature. The museum includes a state-of-the art wildlife hospital which features a permanent exhibit, titled "Living with Nature,'' which houses 75 non-releasable wild animals in learning environments; a 5,000-square-foot Wildlife Hospital complete with treatment rooms, intensive care, quarantine and laboratory facilities; a 1-acre Nature Garden featuring the region's native landscaping and wildlife; and an "Especially For Children'' exhibit.  

WILDLIFE HOSPITAL -- September-March: 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. The hospital is open daily including holidays to receive injured and orphaned animals. There is no charge for treatment of native wild animals and there are no public viewing areas in the hospital. 

SPECIAL EVENTS --  

$5-$7; free children under age 2. Wednesdays-Sundays, 10 a.m.-5 p.m. 1931 First Ave., Walnut Creek. (925) 935-1978, www.wildlife-museum.org.< 

THE MARSH BERKELEY  

"The World's Funniest Bubble Show," through June 27, Sunday, 11 a.m. Bubble Man Louis Pearl presents his fun and family-friendly antics. $7-$50.  

The Gaia Building, 2120 Allston Way, Berkeley. Info: (415) 826-5750, Tickets: (800) 838-3006, www.themarsh.org.< 

MUSEUM OF CHILDREN'S ART A museum of art for and by children, with activities for children to participate in making their own art.  

ART CAMPS -- Hands-on activities and engaging curriculum for children of different ages, led by professional artists and staff. $60 per day.  

CLASSES -- A Sunday series of classes for children ages 8 to 12, led by Mocha artists. Sundays, 2 p.m. to 4 p.m.  

OPEN STUDIOS -- Drop-in art play activities with new themes each week.  

"Big Studio." Guided art projects for children age 6 and older with a Mocha artist. Tuesday through Friday, 4 p.m. to 5 p.m. $5.  

"Little Studio." A hands-on experience that lets young artists age 18 months to 5 years see, touch and manipulate a variety of media. Children can get messy. Tuesday through Friday, 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. $5.  

"Family Weekend Studios." Drop-in art activities for the whole family. All ages welcome. Saturday and Sunday, noon to 4 p.m. $5 per child.  

FAMILY EXTRAVAGANZAS -- Special weekend workshops for the entire family.  

"Sunday Workshops with Illustrators," Sundays, 1 p.m. See the artwork and meet the artists who create children's book illustrations. Free. 

EVENTS --  

"Saturday Stories," 1 p.m. For children ages 2-5. Free. 

SPECIAL EVENT --  

"Saturday Stories," 1 p.m. For ages 2-5. Free. 

Free gallery admission. Tuesday-Friday, 10 a.m.-5 p.m.; Saturday-Sunday, noon-5 p.m. 538 Ninth St., Oakland. (510) 465-8770, www.mocha.org.< 

OAKLAND ZOO The zoo includes a Children's Petting Zoo, the Skyride, a miniature train, a carousel, picnic grounds and a gift shop as well as the animals in site specific exhibits, which allow them to roam freely. Included are "The African Savanna,'' with its two huge mixed-animal aviaries and 11 African Savanna exhibits; the Mahali Pa Tembo (Place of the Elephant), with giraffes, chimpanzees and more than 330 other animals from around the world; "Simba Pori,'' Swahili for "Lion Country,'' a spacious 1.5-acre habitat offering both a savanna and woodland setting for African lions; "Footprints from the Past,'' an anthropology exhibit showcasing four million years of human evolution and an actual "footpath'' of the first hominids to emerge from the African savanna; "Sun Bear Exhibit,'' a stateof-the-art space the zoo has developed for its two sun bears; and Siamang Island, a state-of-the-art, barrier-free area that emulates the gibbons' native tropical rain forest habitat. Also see the Malayan Fruit Bats from the Lubee Bat Conservancy in Florida that are now roosting in trees at the zoo. In addition there are special exhibits and events monthly.  

ONGOING EXHIBITS --  

"Valley Children's Zoo," The three-acre attraction offers a completely interactive experience for both children and adults. The exhibits include lemurs, giant fruit bats, otters, reptiles, insects and more. Daily, 10 a.m. to 4 p.m.  

"Endangered Species," An exhibit of photographs about the most endangered animals on the Earth and what can be done to save them. At the Education Center. Open daily during zoo hours. ONGOING EVENTS --  

"Valley Children's Zoo," Daily, 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. The three-acre attraction will offer a completely interactive experience for both children and adults. The exhibits include lemurs, giant fruit bats, otters, reptiles, insects and more. Free with regular Zoo admission.  

"Wildlife Theater," Saturday, 11:45 a.m.; Sunday, 1:45 p.m. On Saturday mornings listen to a story and meet a live animal. On Sunday afternoon meet live animals and learn cool facts about them. Meet in the Lobby of the Zoo's Maddie's Center for Science and Environmental Education. Free with regular Zoo admission. (510) 632-9525, ext. 142. 

SPECIAL EVENTS --  

$7.50-11; free children under age 2; $6 parking fee. Daily, 10 a.m.-4 p.m. Knowland Park, 9777 Golf Links Road, Oakland. (510) 632-9525, www.oaklandzoo.org.< 

POINT PINOLE REGIONAL SHORELINE The 2,315-acre parkland bordering Pinole, Richmond and San Pablo offers views of Mount Tamalpais, the Marin shoreline and San Pablo Bay. There are trails through meadows and woods, and along the bluffs and beaches of San Pablo Bay. Visitors can hike, ride bikes or take the park's shuttle bus to reach the 1,250-foot fishing pier at Point Pinole. 

$5 per vehicle; $4 per trailered vehicle; $2 per dog (guide/service dogs free). Daily, 5 a.m. to 10 p.m., unless otherwise posted. Giant Highway, Richmond. (510) 562-PARK, www.ebparks.org.< 

ROBERT SIBLEY VOLCANIC REGIONAL PRESERVE East Bay residents have several volcanoes in their backyard. This park contains Round Top, one of the highest peaks in the Oakland Hills. 

Free. Daily, 5 a.m. to 10 p.m. 6800 Skyline Blvd., Oakland. (510) 562-PARK, www.ebparks.org.< 

SCHARFFEN BERGER CHOCOLATE FACTORY This hour-long tour covers the history of chocolate making, from the cultivation of cacao beans to the finished product. After a chocolate tasting, visitors take a walking tour of the factory floor. Open to children 10 and up. Reservations required. 

Free with reservation. Every hour on the half-hour, 10:30 a.m.-4:30 p.m. 914 Heinz Ave., Berkeley. (510) 981-4066, www.scharffenbergertour.com.< 

SHADOW CLIFFS REGIONAL RECREATION AREA The 296-acre park includes an 80-acre lake and a four-flume waterslide, with picnic grounds and a swimming beach. Water slide fees and hours: (925) 829-6230. 

$6 per vehicle; $2 per dog except guide and service dogs. May 1 through Labor Day: daily, 6 a.m. to 9 p.m.; shortened hours for fall and winter. Stanley Boulevard, one mile from downtown, Pleasanton. (510) 562-PARK, www.ebparks.org.< 

SULPHUR CREEK NATURE CENTER A wildlife rehabilitation and education facility where injured and orphaned local wild creatures are rehabilitated and released when possible. There is also a lending library of animals such as guinea pigs, rats, mice and more. The lending fee is $8 per week.  

ONGOING EVENTS --  

"Toddler Time," Learn about animals by listening to stories and exploring. Themes vary by month. Call for schedule. $7 per family.  

"Day on the Green Animal Presentations," Meet an assortment of wild and domestic animals. Wildlife volunteers will present a different animal each day from possums to snakes, tortoises to hawks. Saturday and Sunday, 2:30 p.m. 

CHILDREN'S EVENTS --  

Free. Park: Tuesday-Sunday, 10 a.m.-5 p.m.; Discovery Center: Tuesday-Saturday, 10 a.m.-4:30 p.m.; Animal Lending Library: Saturday-Sunday, 10 a.m.-3 p.m.; Wildlife Rehabilitation Center: daily, 10 a.m.-4:30 p.m. 1801 D St., Hayward. (510) 881-6747, www.haywardrec.org/sulphur_creek.html.< 

TILDEN REGIONAL PARK This park is large and contains hiking trails, a golf course, a miniature scaled train to ride, The Brazilian Building and picnic areas. 

SPECIAL EVENTS --  

"Reptile Rendezvous," May 9, 2-3 p.m. Learn about the reptiles that call the nature area home. 

"Chicky Chickens," May 15, 2-3 p.m. Visit, feed and pet our country pals. 

"Wonderous Wildflowers," May 16, 2-3 p.m. Familiarize yourself with local wildflowers. 

Free unless otherwise noted. Daily, 5 a.m. to 10 p.m. Entrances off Wildcat Canyon Road and Grizzly Peak Boulevard, Berkeley. (510) 525-2233, www.ebparks.org.< 

USS HORNET MUSEUM Come aboard this World War II aircraft carrier that has been converted into a floating museum. The Hornet, launched in 1943, is 899 feet long and 27 stories high. During World War II she was never hit by an enemy strike or plane and holds the Navy record for number of enemy planes shot down in a week. In 1969 the Hornet recovered the Apollo 11 space capsule containing the first men to walk on the moon, and later recovered Apollo 12. In 1991 the Hornet was designated a National Historic Landmark and is now docked at the same pier she sailed from in 1944. Today, visitors can tour the massive ship, view World War II-era warplanes and experience a simulated aircraft launch from the carrier's deck. Exhibits are being added on an ongoing basis. Allow two to three hours for a visit. Wear comfortable shoes and be prepared to climb steep stairs or ladders. Dress in layers as the ship can be cold. Arrive no later than 2 p.m. to sign up for the engine room and other docent-led tours. Children under age 12 are not allowed in the Engine Room or the Combat Information Center.  

ONGOING EVENTS --  

"Limited Access Day," Due to ship maintenance, tours of the navigation bridge and the engine room are not available. Tuesdays.  

"Flight Deck Fun," A former Landing Signal Officer will show children how to bring in a fighter plane for a landing on the deck then let them try the signals themselves. Times vary. Free with regular Museum admission.  

"Protestant Divine Services," Hornet chaplain John Berger conducts church services aboard The Hornet in the Wardroom Lounge. Everyone is welcome and refreshments are served immediately following the service. Sundays, 11 a.m. 

SPECIAL EVENTS -- Closed on New Year's Day. 

"Living Ship Day," Experience an aircraft carrier in action, with simulated flight operations as aircraft are lifted to the flight deck and placed in launch position. Some former crewmembers will be on hand. 

"Family Day," Discounted admission for families of four with a further discount for additional family members. Access to some of the areas may be limited due to ship maintenance. Every Tuesday. $20 for family of four; $5 for each additional family member. 

"Flashlight Tour," Receive a special tour of areas aboard the ship that have not yet been opened to the public or that have limited access during the day. 

"Heroes of the Pacific," May 16, 3:30 p.m.-8 p.m. The USS Hornet pays tribute to the soldiers who survived the desperate days of the Pacific Campaign with a screening of the finale of the HBO miniseries "The Pacific,'' along with guest speakers, including some of the Hornet's very own World War II veteran crew who will share their experiences. 

$6-$14; free children age 4 and under with a paying adult. Daily, 10 a.m.-4 p.m. Pier 3 (enter on Atlantic Avenue), Alameda Point, Alameda. (510) 521-8448, www.uss-hornet.org.<

A GREAT GOOD PLACE FOR BOOKS  

Katie Crouch, May 7, 7 p.m. The author talks about "Men and Dogs.''  

Kathi Goldmark and Sam Barry, May 8, 7 p.m. The authors talk about "Write That Book Already! The Tough Love You Need to Get Published Now.''  

6120 LaSalle Ave., Oakland. (510) 339-8210, www.greatgoodplace.indiebound.com.< 

BANKHEAD THEATER  

"Strings, Tuba and Mahler," May 15, 8 p.m. Program features works by Gustav Mahler, Gustav Holst and Alexander Arutiunian. $8-$28.  

2400 First Street, Livermore. (925) 373-6800, www.livermoreperformingarts.org.< 

FIRST CONGREGATIONAL CHURCH OF BERKELEY  

"Rockin' Robin," May 9, 3-5 p.m. San Francisco Chamber Orchestra presents the world premiere of a new violin concerto by Composer in Residence Gabriela Frank. Free. (415) 248-1640, www.sfchamberorchestra.org. 

2345 Channing Way, Berkeley. (510) 848-3696, www.fccb.org.< 

FOX THEATER  

Mastodon, Between the Buried and Me, High on Fire, Baroness, Priestess, May 8, 4 p.m. $35.  

1807 Telegraph Ave., Oakland. (510) 452-0438.< 

FREIGHT AND SALVAGE  

Charlie Hunter Trio, May 13. $24.50-$25.50.  

Music starts at 8 p.m. unless otherwise noted. 2020 Addison St., Berkeley. (510) 548-1761, www.freightandsalvage.org.< 

HERTZ HALL AT THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, BERKELEY  

"57th Annual Noon Concert Series," Noon.  

University Symphony Orchestra, May 7 through May 8, 8 p.m. David Mines conducts a program featuring works by Schumann and Shostakovich. $5-$15. (510) 642-9988. 

Bancroft Way and College Ave., Berkeley. (510) 642-4864, www.music.berkeley.edu.< 

MOE'S BOOKS  

Roddy Doyle, May 7. The author talks about "The Dead Republic.''  

10 a.m.-11 p.m. daily. 2476 Telegraph Ave., Berkeley. (510) 849-2087, www.moesbooks.com.< 

YOSHI'S  

Christian McBride & Inside Straight, through May 7, 8 and 10 p.m. $12-$20.  

David Grisman Quintet plus special guest Mike Barnett, May 14 through May 16, Friday and Saturday 8 and 10 p.m.; Sunday, 2 and 7 p.m. $30.  

Shows are Monday through Saturday, 8 and 10 p.m.; Sunday, 2 and 7 p.m., unless otherwise noted. 510 Embarcadero West, Oakland. (510) 238-9200, www.yoshis.com.< 

ZELLERBACH HALL AT THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, BERKELEY  

Laurie Anderson, May 7 through May 8, 8 p.m. $30-$56. www.calperformances.org. 

UC Berkeley campus, Bancroft Way and Telegraph Avenue, Berkeley. (510) 642-9988.<

CALIFORNIA HISTORICAL SOCIETY  

HISTORY WALKABOUTS -- A series of monthly walking tours that explore the history, lore and architecture of California with veteran tour guide Gary Holloway. Walks take place rain or shine so dress for the weather. Reservations and prepayment required. Meeting place will be given with confirmation of tour reservation. Tour price includes admission to the Museum.  

$1-$3; free children under age 5. Wednesday-Saturday, noon-4:30 p.m. 678 Mission St., San Francisco. (415) 357-1848 X229, www.californiahistoricalsociety.org.< 

COMMONWEALTH CLUB OF CALIFORNIA  

"How Abolition of the Death Penalty Will Make us All Safer, Richer, Smarter and More Beautiful," May 10, 5:15 p.m. Hear how abolition of the Death Penalty will make us all safer, richer, smarter and more beautiful. Free-$20.  

"Taking Control of Your Health in the New Era of Personalized Medicine," May 12, 6:30 p.m. Learn how you play a major role in deciding what's best for your health. $12-$20.  

"The Urban Farming Movement," May 12, 6:30 p.m. Dirt on your suit never looked so good. $7-$20.  

"Content Monetization: What's Working?," May 13, 7 p.m. Which business model works best to bring in the bucks? $12-$20.  

"Steven Pease: Jewish Leadership," May 13, 6 p.m. Exploring the achievement of this dominant minority. $7-$20.  

595 Market St., Second Floor, San Francisco. (415) 597-6705, www.commonwealthclub.org.< 

FEMINA POTENS GALLERY  

"Open Eyes," First Friday of every month, 8 p.m. Screening of films by local artists followed by a wine and vegan cookie reception along with a question and answer session with the filmmakers. $7-$10.  

Free unless otherwise noted. Thursday through Sunday, noon to 6 p.m. 2199 Market Street at Sanchez, San Francisco. (415) 217-9340, www.feminapotens.org.< 

FERRY PLAZA FARMERS' MARKET  

Mark Ayres, May 8, 11 a.m. The Highlands Inn chef presents a cooking demo and book signing.  

Mireille Guiliano, May 8, 11:45 a.m. The author of "French Women Don't Get Fat,'' presents a table cooking demo and book signing.  

At the base of Market St. on the Embarcadero, San Francisco. (415) 291-3276.< 

HAAS-LILIENTHAL HOUSE This historic Queen Anne is distinguished as the only intact private home of the period that is open regularly as a museum, complete with authentic furniture and artifacts. The House has elaborate wooden gables, a circular corner tower and luxuriant ornamentation. Volunteer docents lead tours through the House and explain the Victorian architecture of the exterior. A display of photographs in the downstairs supper-room describes the history of the home and the family that lived here until 1972.  

Tours are offered regularly on Sundays from 11 a.m.-4 p.m. and on Wednesdays and Saturdays from Noon-3 p.m. Special group tours are also available. 

$5-$8. 2007 Franklin St., San Francisco. (415) 441-3000, www.sfheritage.org.< 

HERBST THEATRE  

Anna Quindlen, May 10, 8 p.m. City Arts and Lectures presents the novelist and journalist in conversation with Paul Lancour.  

George Booth and Matthew Diffee, May 11, 8 p.m. City Arts and Lectures presents the New Yorker cartoonists in conversation.  

Jamy Ian Swiss, May 13, 8 p.m. City Arts and Lectures presents the magician in conversation with "Mythbusters'' host Adam Savage.  

401 Van Ness Ave., San Francisco. (415) 392-4400, www.cityboxoffice.com.< 

JEWISH COMMUNITY CENTER OF SAN FRANCISCO  

"Mark Cantor's Giants of Jazz on Film," May 8, 8 p.m. Celebrate the big band era. $12-$24.  

Monday-Thursday, 8 a.m.-10 p.m.; Friday, 8 a.m.-6 p.m.; Saturday, 8:30 a.m.-6 p.m.; Sunday, 9 a.m.-6 p.m. 3200 California St., San Francisco. (415) 292-1200, Box Office: (415) 292-1233, www.jccsf.org.< 

O IZAKAYA LOUNGE  

"Weekly Karaoke," Thursdays, 9 p.m.-midnight. The popular Japanese Izakaya restaurant features Japanese cuisine and karaoke in a convivial, sports-themed atmosphere.  

1625 Post, San Francisco. (415) 614-5431.< 

PRESIDIO DANCE THEATER  

"Breakfast with Enzo," Fridays, 10 a.m.-noon. A highly acclaimed live family music show. $5. (415) 561-3958, www.enzogarcia.com. 

1158 Gorgas Road at Marshall, San Francisco. (415) 608-4503, www.boomercize.com.< 

YERBA BUENA CENTER FOR THE ARTS The center's visual arts exhibitions feature contemporary art and popular culture by local, national and international artists. There are four rounds of exhibitions in the galleries each year. 

"To the Limit: Pina Bausch on Film," through May 30. May 6, 7:30 p.m.: "On Tour with Pina Bausch (Un Jour Pina a Demande).  

May 13, 7:30 p.m.: "The Complaint of the Empress (Die Klage der Kaiserin).  

May 23, 2 p.m.: "Two Performance Films: Walzer and Cafi Muller  

May 27-29, 7:30 p.m.: Dancing Dreams (Tanztraume).  

May 30, 2 p.m.: Bluebeard  

"Typeface," May 15 through May 16, Saturday, 6 and 8 p.m.; Sunday, 2 and 4 p.m. Follow the story of the Hamilton Wood Type Museum in Two Rivers, Wisconsin.  

$3-$6; free the first Tuesday of every month. Tuesday, Wednesday and Sunday, noon-5 p.m.; Thursday-Saturday, noon-8 p.m. 701 Mission St., San Francisco. (415) 978-2787, www.ybca.org.<

ASIAN ART MUSEUM OF SAN FRANCISCO The Asian Art Museum-Chon-Moon Lee Center for Asian Art and Culture recently unveiled its new building in San Francisco's Civic Center. The building, the former San Francisco Public Library, has been completely retrofitted and rebuilt to house San Francisco's significant collection of Asian treasures. The museum offers complimentary audio tours of the museum's collection galleries.  

ONGOING EXHIBIT --  

"In a New Light," There are some 2,500 works displayed in the museum's new galleries. They cover all the major cultures of Asia and include Indian stone sculptures, intricately carved Chinese jades, Korean paintings, Tibetan thanksgas, Cambodian Buddhas, Islamic manuscripts and Japanese basketry and kimonos.  

ONGOING FAMILY PROGRAMS --  

Storytelling, Sundays and the first Saturday of every month, 1 p.m. This event is for children of all ages to enjoy a re-telling of Asian myths and folktales in the galleries. Meet at the Information Desk on the Ground Floor. Free with general admission.  

"Target Tuesday Family Program," first Tuesday of every month. Free with general admission.  

"Family Art Encounter," first Saturday of every month, 1 p.m. to 4 p.m. Drop in to make art related to the museum's collection. Children must be accompanied by an adult. In the Education Studios. Free with admission.  

DOCENT-LED ART TOURS -- The museum's docents offer two types of tours: a general introduction to the museum's collection and a highlight tour of specific areas of the collection. Free with museum admission.  

ARCHITECTURAL GUIDES -- Tuesday through Sunday at noon and 2:30 p.m., Thursday at 6:30 p.m. Learn about the former Main Library's transformation into the Asian Art Museum on this 40-minute tour. Free with museum admission.  

RESOURCE CENTER -- Tuesday through Sunday, 12:30 p.m. to 4:30 p.m. Watch a video, or learn more about Asian art with slide packets, activity kits and books. Free with museum admission. 

SPECIAL EVENTS -- Free with general admission unless otherwise noted.  

"Shanghai," through Sept. 5. Exhibition features more than 130 artworks including oil paintings, Shanghai Deco furniture, revolutionary posters, works of fashion and more.  

$7-$12; free children under age 12; $5 Thursday after 5 p.m.; free to all first Sunday of each month. Tuesday, Wednesday, and Friday through Sunday, 10 a.m.-5 p.m.; Thursday, 10 a.m.-9 p.m. 200 Larkin St., San Francisco. (415) 581-3500, www.asianart.org.< 

BEAT MUSEUM Formerly located on the California coast in Monterey, the Beat Museum now sits in historic North Beach. The Museum uses letters, magazines, pictures, first editions and more to explore the lives of leading beat figures such as Jack Kerouac, Lawrence Ferlinghetti, Allen Ginsberg, Neal Cassady and many others. A gift shop and bookstore are open to the public free of charge. 

SPECIAL EVENTS --  

"North Beach Walking Tour,", A 90-minute walking tour of North Beach with Beat Museum curator Jerry Cimimo. See the bars, coffeehouses, homes, and other Beat-related highlights of North Beach. Call for info. $15. 

SPECIAL EXHIBITS --  

$4-$5. Monday-Sunday, 10 a.m.-7 p.m. CLOSED MONDAY. 540 Broadway, San Francisco. (800) KER-OUAC, www.kerouac.com.< 

CABLE CAR MUSEUM The museum is located in the historic Cable Car Barn and Powerhouse. Visitors can see the actual cable winding machinery, grips, track, cable and brakes, as well as three historic cable cars, photo displays and mechanical artifacts. The best way to get to this museum is by cable car; street parking is practically non-existent. 

SPECIAL EVENTS --  

Free. April 1-Sept. 30: daily, 10 a.m.-6 p.m. Oct. 1-March 31, 10 a.m.-5 p.m. 1201 Mason St., San Francisco. (415) 474-1887, www.cablecarmuseum.org.< 

CALIFORNIA ACADEMY OF SCIENCES  

"Nightlife," Thursdays, 6 p.m. Every Thursday night, the Academy transforms into a lively venue filled with provocative science, music, mingling and cocktails, as visitors get a chance to explore the museum.  

"Where the Land Meets the Sea," Exhibition features sculpture by Maya Lin.  

BENJAMIN DEAN LECTURE SERIES --  

$14.95-$24.95. Daily, 9:30 a.m.-5 p.m. Golden Gate Park, San Francisco. (415) 379-8000, www.calacademy.org.< 

CALIFORNIA HISTORICAL SOCIETY  

HISTORY WALKABOUTS -- A series of monthly walking tours that explore the history, lore and architecture of California with veteran tour guide Gary Holloway. Walks take place rain or shine so dress for the weather. Reservations and prepayment required. Meeting place will be given with confirmation of tour reservation. Tour price includes admission to the Museum.  

MUSEUM -- The museum's permanent collection is made up of the Fine Arts Collection, consisting of 5,000 works of art that represent the history of California from pre-Gold Rush days to the early decade of the 20th century; and The Photography Collection, containing nearly a halfmillion images in an array of photographic formats documenting the history of California in both the 19th and 20th centuries. The Library and Research Collection contain material relating to the history of California and the West from early exploration time to the present including texts, maps, and manuscripts.  

"Landscape and Vision: Early California Painters from the Collections of the California Historical Society," open-ended. An exhibit of oil paintings including a large number of early landscapes of California, from the museum's collection.  

"Extreme Mammals," through Sept. 12. Exhibition explores mammals, from the towering to the tiny.  

$1-$3; free children under age 5. Wednesday-Saturday, noon-4:30 p.m. 678 Mission St., San Francisco. (415) 357-1848 X229, www.californiahistoricalsociety.org.< 

CARTOON ART MUSEUM  

ONGOING EXHIBIT --  

"An Exploration of Cartoon Art," This exhibit explores the history of cartoon art including works from the most renowned and creative cartoonists of the last century. The exhibit traces the evolution of cartooning through its many forms including animation, comic strips, comic books, editorial cartoons and underground cartoons.  

CARTOONING CLASSES FOR KIDS -- Saturday, 1 p.m. to 3 p.m. For children ages 6 to 14. Call for schedule. Free with admission. 

"Small Press Spotlight on Jamaica Dyer," through June 13. Exhibition features works by the Santa Cruz artist.  

OPENING -- "60 Years of Beetle Bailey," May 8 through Sept. 19. Exhibition showcases the comics of Mort Walker.  

$2-$6; free children ages 5 and under; the first Tuesday of the month is paywhat-you-wish day. Tuesday-Sunday, 11 a.m.-5 p.m. 655 Mission St., San Francisco. (415) 227-8666, www.cartoonart.org.< 

CHINESE HISTORICAL SOCIETY OF AMERICA The CHSA Museum and Learning Center features a permanent exhibition, "The Chinese of America: Toward a More Perfect Union'' in its Main Gallery, and works by Chinese-American visual artists in its Rotating Galleries.  

ONGOING EXHIBIT --  

"Leaders of the Band," An exhibition of the history and development of the Cathay Club Marching Band, the first Chinese American band formed in 1911. 

SPECIAL EXHIBITS --  

$1-$3; free children ages 5 and under; free for all visitors first Thursday of every month. Tuesday-Friday, noon-5 p.m.; Saturday-Sunday, noon-4 p.m. 965 Clay St., San Francisco. (415) 391-1188, www.chsa.org.< 

CONTEMPORARY JEWISH MUSEUM The museum, formerly known as the Jewish Museum San Francisco, has a new addition designed by Daniel Libeskind and is dedicated to exploring the richness and diversity of Jewish thought and culture.  

GALLERY TOURS -- Sunday and Wednesday, 12:30 p.m. Free. 

"As It Is Written: Project 304,805," through Oct. 3. Exhibition centers around a soferet (a professionally trained female scribe) who writes out the entire text of the Torah, at the Museum, over the course of a full year. She will be one of the few known women to complete an entire Torah scroll, an accomplishment traditionally exclusive to men.  

"Our Struggle: Responding to Mein Kampf," through June 15. Linda Elia presents a a host of artists' page-by-page response to Hitler's notorious memoir and manifesto.  

$4-$5; free for children under age 12; free third Monday of every month. Sunday -Thursday, noon-6 p.m. DEC. 25, NOON TO 4 P.M.; CLOSED JAN. 1. 736 Mission St., San Francisco. (415) 655-7800, www.thecjm.org.< 

DE YOUNG MUSEUM The art museum has now reopened in a new facility designed by Swiss architecture firm Herzog and de Meuron and Fong and Chan Architects in San Francisco. It features significant collections of American art from the 17th through the 20th centuries; modern and contemporary art; art from Central and South America, the Pacific and Africa; and an important and diverse collection of textiles. 

ARTIST STUDIO PROGRAM -- Wednesday-Sunday, 1-5 p.m. A monthly interactive program during which the public can meet and work with a featured artist. Demonstrations take place in the Kimball Education Gallery, which does not require paid admission. (415) 750-7634. 

CHILDREN'S ACTIVITIES --  

"Children's Workshops: Doing and Viewing Art and Big Kids-Little Kids," Saturdays, 10:30 a.m.-noon and 1:30-3 p.m. Family tour and art activity for ages 4-12. 

LECTURES AND SYMPOSIA --  

LECTURES BY DOCENTS -- These lectures are free and are held in the Koret Auditorium unless otherwise noted.  

SPECIAL EVENTS --  

"Friday Nights at the de Young: Cultural Encounters," 5-8:45 p.m. The de Young stays open until 8:45 p.m. each Friday night and hosts special events including live music, dance, film, lectures and artist demonstrations.  

Aug. 22: "Cultural Encounters presents Hot Brazilian Nights.''  

Event features music by Forro for All and art-making for the entire family.  

Aug. 29: "Cultural Encounters.''  

Event features live music by the Scott Amendola Trio. Free with admission. 

"Poetry Series," 7-8:30 p.m. $8-$12. (415) 750-7634. 

"Tutankhamun and the Golden Age of the Pharaohs," through May 28. More than 3,000 years after his reign, and 30 years after the original exhibition opened in San Francisco, Tutankhamun, ancient Egypt's celebrated "boy king," returns to the de Young Museum. In the summer of 2009 the de Young presents Tutankhamun and the Golden Age of the Pharaohs, a glorious exhibition of over 130 outstanding works from the tomb of Tutankhamun, as well as those of his royal predecessors, his family, and court officials. Tutankhamun and the Golden Age of the Pharaohs includes many new and exciting elements not seen in previous versions of the exhibition, including a revised version of the catalogue, a new audio tour, and additional artifacts from Tutankhamun's tomb.  

"Amish Abstractions: Quilts from the Collection of Faith and Stephen Brown," through June 6. This exhibition features approximately 48 fullsize and crib quilts dating from the 1880s to the 1940s. Quilts made by girls and women of various Amish communities in Pennsylvania and the Midwest are visual distillations of their way of life. The Amish faith embodies the principles of simplicity, humility, discipline, and community, but their quilts are anything but humble. Using a rich color palette and bold patterns, these quilts are truly a unique contribution to American textile history. The quilts highlight the beauty and complexity of the abstract patterns.  

"I Keep Foolin' Around: William T. Wiley as Printmaker," through July 4. Exhibition features paintings, sculpture and more by Bay Area artist Wiley.  

$6-$10; free for children ages 12 and under; free for all visitors the first Tuesday of every month. Tuesday-Thursday and Saturday-Sunday, 9:30 a.m.-5:15 p.m.; Friday, 9:30 a.m.-8:45 p.m. Golden Gate Park, 50 Hagiwara Tea Garden Drive, San Francisco. (415) 863-3330, www.deyoungmuseum.org.< 

GLBT HISTORICAL SOCIETY AND MUSEUM The museum is a project of the GLBT (Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, Transgender) Historical Society. 

EVENTS --  

EXHIBITS --  

$2-$4. Tuesday-Saturday, 1-5 p.m. 657 Mission St., Suite 300, San Francisco. (415) 777-5455, www.glbthistory.org.< 

INTERNATIONAL MUSEUM OF WOMEN  

EVENTS --  

101 Howard Street, Suite 480, San Francisco. (415) 543-4669, www.imow.org/home/index.< 

LEGION OF HONOR MUSEUM DOCENT TOUR PROGRAMS -- Tours of the permanent collections and special exhibitions are offered Tuesday through Sunday. Non-English language tours (Italian, French, Spanish and Russian) are available on different Saturdays of the month at 11:30 a.m. Free with regular museum admission. (415) 750-3638.  

ONGOING CHILDREN'S PROGRAM --  

"Doing and Viewing Art," For ages 7 to 12. Docent-led tours of current exhibitions are followed by studio workshops taught by professional artists/teachers. Students learn about art by seeing and making it. Saturday, 10:30 a.m. to noon; call to confirm class. Free with museum admission. (415) 750-3658. 

ORGAN CONCERTS -- 4 p.m. A weekly concert of organ music on the Legion's restored 1924 Skinner organ. Saturday and Sunday in the Rodin Gallery. Free with museum admission. (415) 750-3624. 

SPECIAL EVENTS -- In the Gould Theater unless otherwise noted. $4 after museum admission unless otherwise noted. (415) 682-2481. 

"Sunday Jazz Brunch," 11 a.m.-3 p.m. $21-$53. 

$6-$10; free for children ages 12 and under; free for all visitors on Tuesdays. Tuesday-Sunday, 9:30 a.m.-5 p.m. Lincoln Park, 34th Avenue and Clement Street, San Francisco. (415) 750-3600, (415) 750-3636, www.thinker.org.< 

MARKET STREET RAILWAY MUSEUM The museum will permanently display a variety of artifacts telling the story of San Francisco's transportation history, including dash signs, fare boxes, a famed Wiley "birdcage'' traffic signal and more. 

Free. Wednesday-Sunday, 10 a.m.-6 p.m. 77 Steuart St., San Francisco. (415) 956-0472, www.streetcar.org.< 

MEXICAN MUSEUM  

THE MEXICAN MUSEUM GALLERIES AT FORT MASON CENTER ARE CURRENTLY CLOSED --  

The Mexican Museum holds a unique collection of 12,000 objects representing thousands of years of Mexican history and culture within the Americas. The permanent collection, the Museum's most important asset and resource, includes five collecting areas: Pre-Conquest, Colonial, Popular, Modern and Contemporary Mexican and Latino, and Chicano Art. The Museum also has a collection of rare books and a growing collection of Latin American art. 

Fort Mason Center, Building D, Buchanan Street and Marina Boulevard, San Francisco. (415) 202-9700, www.mexicanmuseum.org.< 

MUSEO ITALOAMERICANO The museum, dedicated to the exhibition of art works by Italian and Italian-American artists, has a small permanent collection of paintings, sculptures, photographs and works on paper by such renowned artists as Beniamino Buffano, Sandro Chia, Giorgio de Chirico and Arnaldo Pomodoro.  

DOCENT TOURS -- Wednesdays, 1 p.m. to 3 p.m. Free. 

$2-$3; free children under age 12; free to all first Wednesday of the month. Wednesday-Sunday, noon -4 p.m.; first Wednesday of the month, noon-7 p.m. Fort Mason Center, Building C, Buchanan Street and Marina Boulevard, San Francisco. (415) 673-2200, www.museoitaloamericano.org.< 

MUSEUM OF ANCIENT CIVILIZATIONS AT SAN FRANCISCO STATE UNIVERSITY  

EXHIBITS --  

Free. Monday through Friday, 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. Humanities Building, Room 510, SFSU, Font Boulevard and Tapia Drive, San Francisco. (415) 405-0599, www.sfsu.edu/~museumst/.< 

MUSEUM OF PERFORMANCE AND DESIGN  

EXHIBITS --  

Free. Wednesday-Saturday, noon-5 p.m. Veterans Building, 401 Van Ness Avenue at McAllister, 4th Floor, San Francisco. (415) 255-4800, www.mpdsf.org.< 

MUSEUM OF THE AFRICAN DIASPORA A new museum exploring and celebrating the influence of the African Diaspora on global art and culture through interactive, permanent and changing exhibits and special programs. The museum occupies the first three floors of the new St. Regis Hotel at Third and Mission streets.  

PERMANENT EXHIBITS --  

"Celebrations: Rituals and Ceremonies," "Music of the Diaspora,'' "Culinary Traditions,'' 'Adornment,'' "Slavery Passages,'' and "The Freedom Theater.'' 

SPECIAL EVENTS --  

"Urban Kidz Film Series," Noon-3 p.m. An offshoot of the San Francisco Black Film Festival, featuring a striking assemblage of short and feature films designed to spark the imaginations of the 5-to-12-year-old set. $10 adults; children free. (415) 771-9271. 

SPECIAL EXHIBITS --  

$5-$8; free children age 12 and under. Monday, Wednesday, Friday and Saturday, 10 a.m.-6 p.m.; Thursday, 10 a.m.-9 p.m.; Sunday, noon-5 p.m.; CLOSED MARCH 13 THROUGH MARCH 21. 685 Mission St., San Francisco. (415) 358-7200, www.moadsf.org.< 

NATIONAL MARITIME MUSEUM LIBRARY (THE J. PORTER SHAW MARITIME LIBRARY) Closed on federal holidays. The library, part of the San Francisco Maritime National Historic Park, focuses on sail and steam ships on the West Coast and the Pacific Basin from 1520 to the present. The museum library holdings include a premiere collection of maritime history: books, magazines, oral histories, ships' plans and the San Francisco Maritime National Historical Park's 250,000 photographs. 

Free. By appointment only, Monday-Friday, 1-4 p.m., and the third Saturday of each month. Fort Mason Center, Building E, Third Floor, Buchanan Street and Marina Boulevard, San Francisco. (415) 560-7080, (415) 560-7030, www.nps.gov/safr/local/lib/libtop.html.< 

PACIFIC HERITAGE MUSEUM The museum presents rotating exhibits highlighting historical, artistic, cultural and economic achievements from both sides of the Pacific Rim. The museum features a permanent display documenting the history and significance of the Branch Mint and Subtreasury buildings. 

Free. Tuesday-Saturday, 10 a.m.-4 p.m. 608 Commercial St., San Francisco. (415) 399-1124.< 

RANDALL MUSEUM  

ONGOING EXHIBITS --  

"Earthquake Exhibit," Learn about plate tectonics. Make a small quake by jumping on the floor to make a "floor quake'' that registers on the seismometer in the lobby. See the basement seismometer that registers quakes around the world. Walk through a full-size earthquake refugee shack that was used to house San Franciscans after the 1906 earthquake that destroyed so many homes.  

"Creativity and Discovery Hand in Hand," A photography exhibit that gives visitors a look into the wide variety of programs the Museum offers in the way of classes, workshops, school field trips, and special interest clubs.  

"Toddler Treehouse," Toddlers may comfortably climb the carpeted "treehouse'' and make a myriad of discoveries, from the roots to the limbs.  

"Live Animal Exhibit," Visit with more than 100 creatures including small mammals, amphibians, reptiles, raptors and small birds, insects, spiders and tide pool creatures.  

ONGOING EVENTS --  

"Saturdays Are Special at the Museum," Saturdays, 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. A series of drop-in ceramics and art and science workshops. All ages are welcome, though an adult must accompany children under age 8. $3 per child, $5 per parent-child combination.  

"Bufano Sculpture Tours," first and third Saturdays of the month, 10:15 a.m. A tour of the giant animal sculptures of Beniamino Bufano. The sculptures were carved out of stone in the 1930s and include a giant cat and a mother bear nursing her cubs.  

"Animal Room," Visit some of the animals that live at the museum, including reptiles, raptors, tide pool creatures and small mammals.  

"Meet the Animals" Saturdays, 11:15 a.m. to noon. See the Randall's animals close-up and in person.  

"Animal Feeding," Saturdays, noon. Watch the animals take their meals.  

"Golden Gate Model Railroad Exhibit," Saturdays, 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. 

DROP-IN ART AND SCIENCE WORKSHOPS -- 1-4 p.m. $3-$5.  

SPECIAL EVENTS --  

"Film Series for Teenagers," Fridays, 7 p.m. 

"Third Friday Birders," 8 a.m. The hike through Corona Heights Park allows participants to enjoy the early morning views and learn more about the feathered inhabitants of the area. Children aged 10 and older if accompanied by adult. 

"Drop-in Family Ceramics Workshop," Saturday, 10:15-11:15 a.m. $5. 

"Golden Gate Model Railroad Exhibit," Saturday, 11 a.m.-4 p.m. 

"Meet the Animals," Saturdays, 11:15 a.m. Learn about the animals that live at the Randall Museum. 

"Meet the Animals," 11:15 a.m.-noon. 

"Animal Feeding," Saturday, noon. 

"Drop-in Family Ceramics Workshop," Saturday, 1:15-2:15 p.m. 

Free. All ages welcome; an adult must accompany children under age 8. Tuesday-Saturday, 10 a.m.-5 p.m.; CLOSED ON CHRISTMAS. 199 Museum Way, San Francisco. (415) 554-9600, www.randallmuseum.org.< 

SAN FRANCISCO CABLE CAR MUSEUM The museum is located in the historic Cable Car Barn and Powerhouse. Visitors can see the actual cable winding machinery, grips, track, cable and brakes, as well as three historic cable cars, photo displays and mechanical artifacts. The best way to get to this museum is by cable car; street parking is practically non-existent. 

Free. October 1-March 31: Daily, 10 a.m.-5 p.m.; April 1-September 3-: 10 a.m.-6 p.m.; Closed on New Year's Day, Easter Sunday, Thanksgiving and Christmas. 1201 Mason St., San Francisco. (415) 474-1887, www.cablecarmuseum.com.< 

SAN FRANCISCO MARITIME NATIONAL HISTORICAL PARK One of only a few "floating'' national parks, the San Francisco Maritime National Historical Park includes four national landmark ships, a maritime museum, a maritime library and a World-War-II submarine named the USS Pampanito.  

HYDE STREET PIER -- Demonstrations, ship tours, programs, music and special events offered throughout the day. Check ticket booth for schedule. At the foot of Hyde Street, Hyde and Jefferson streets.  

Entering the Pier is free but there is a fee to board the ships.  

HISTORIC SHIPS AT THE HYDE STREET PIER -- The historic ships at the Pier are the 1886 square-rigger "Balclutha,'' the 1890 steam ferryboat "Eureka,'' the 1895 schooner "C.A. Thayer'' (not available at this time due to restoration), the 1891 scow schooner "Alma,'' the 1907 steam tug "Hercules,'' and the 1914 "Eppleton Hall,'' a paddlewheel tug.  

"Balclutha." This historic ship, a three-mast square-rigger, has undergone extensive repairs and preservation work. She now contains more original materials and fittings than any other historic merchant square-rigger in the United States. The Balclutha is a designated National Historic Landmark. At Hyde Street Pier.  

"Eureka." Explore this 1890 ferryboat with a 40-foot walking-beam engine. The boat once carried passengers and autos across the San Francisco Bay. At Hyde Street Pier. Daily, call for times of boat tour.  

"C.A. Thayer." A three-mast schooner used in the lumber and cod fishing trades. At Hyde Street Pier.  

"Alma." Between 1850 and the early 1900s, the best highways around the San Francisco Bay area were the waterways and the delivery trucks and tractortrailer rigs of the time were the flat-bottomed scow schooners. Able to navigate the Sacramento/San Joaquin Delta region's shallow creeks, sloughs and channels, the scows' sturdy hulls could rest safely and securely on the bottom providing a flat, stable platform for loading and unloading. Made of inexpensive Douglas fir, scow's designs were so simple they could be built by eye or without plans.  

"Hercules." Tugs in the early part of the 20th century towed barges, sailing ships and log rafts between Pacific ports. Because prevailing north/west winds generally made travel up the coast by sail both difficult and circuitous, tugs often towed large sailing vessels to points north of San Francisco. In 1916 Hercules towed the C.A. Thayer to Port Townsend, Wash., taking six days to make the trip. At the end of the sail era, the Hercules was acquired by the Western Pacific Railroad Company and shuttled railroad car barges back and forth across San Francisco Bay until 1962.  

"Eppleton Hall." Built in England, the steam side-wheeler plied the Wear and Tyne rivers of Northeast England. Designed to tow ocean-going colliers (coal-carrying sail vessels) the tugs saved transit time getting the sail vessels upriver to load. The side-wheelers were also used to tow newly built ships out to sea. From 1969 to 1979, the Eppleton Hall served as a private yacht. She was modified for an epic steam via the Panama Canal to San Francisco, passing through the Golden Gate in March of 1970.  

HISTORIC SHIP AT FISHERMAN'S WHARF --  

"USS Pampanito." This World-War-II-era submarine is berthed at Fisherman's Wharf. The submarine celebrated her 50th anniversary in November of 1993 and is perhaps best known for her participation in a "wolf pack'' attack on a convoy of enemy ships during World War II. The entrance fee includes a taped audio tour that describes what life on this submarine was like. At Pier 45, near foot of Taylor Street. Monday through Thursday, Sunday and holidays, 9 a.m. to 6 p.m.; Friday and Saturday, 9 a.m. to 8 p.m. $9 general; $5 seniors, $4 active duty military, $4 youth ages 6 to 12; free children under age 6. (415) 775-1943.  

ONGOING EVENTS --  

"Historic Ship Volunteer Work Party," Saturday, 9 a.m. Become part of an effort to preserve four of the park's nautical treasures. Work on a different ship each Saturday. Bring work clothes, work shoes and lunch. Call for meeting place. (415) 332-8409.  

Unless noted otherwise, events take place on the Hyde Street Pier, located at the foot of Hyde Street on Jefferson Street. 

EXHIBITS -- Current Exhibits at the Visitor Center:  

"What's Your Pleasure? Recreational Boats of California's Past," openended. This exhibit includes 1940s Sacramento Hydroplanes, a Russian River launch from the 19th century, classic wooden motor launches and motor boats, and other smaller crafts.  

"Hydroplanes and Racing Boats," open-ended. A small exhibit showcasing 1930s racing engines and hydroplane boats.  

"Frisco Bound," an exhibition about immigration to San Francisco, clipper ships, and the Gold Rush era.  

"Hyde Street Ship Models," an exhibit of models of the historic ships at the Hyde Street Pier.  

"Discovery Room," a preview of the Maritime Library where visitors can look up documents and photographs.  

(415) 447-5000. 

SPECIAL EVENTS --  

"Adventures at Sea: Life Aboard a 19th century Sailing Ship," Daily, 2:15 p.m.-3 p.m. Take a guided tour of the sailing ship Balclutha and learn about the hardships and awards of the sailors show fought for survival during the treacherous Cape Horn passage. Vessel admission. 

"Modeler's Workshop," Saturdays, 9:30 a.m. Learn how to build ship models from experts. Meet on the car deck of the Eureka. Vessel admission. 

VISITOR CENTER -- Daily, 9:30 a.m.-5 p.m.  

Entering the Pier is free but there is a fee to board the ships. The fee allows access to all ships and is good for seven days. $5; free children under age 16. May 28-Sept. 30: daily, 9:30 a.m.-7 p.m.; Oct. 1-May 27: Daily, 9:30 a.m.-5 p.m. Foot of Hyde Street, San Francisco. (415) 561-7100, www.nps.gov.< 

SAN FRANCISCO MUSEUM OF CRAFT AND DESIGN A museum celebrating and promoting the art of contemporary craft and design. The museum showcases diverse exhibitions from regional, national and international artists, working in mediums such as wood, clay, fiber, metal and glass. 

EVENTS --  

"Designers on Jewelry," through May 16. More than 70 pieces of jewelry created by 51 internationally-renowned designers offer an imaginitive, thought-provoking and sometime shumorous vision of contemporary jewelry.  

$2-$4; free youths under age 18. Tuesday-Saturday, 10 a.m.-5 p.m. 550 Sutter St., San Francisco. (415) 773-0303, www.sfmcd.org.< 

SAN FRANCISCO MUSEUM OF MODERN ART  

ONGOING EXHIBITS --  

"Matisse and Beyond: The Painting and Sculpture Collection," This newly reconceived exhibition of SFMOMA's modern art collection features paintings, sculptures and works on paper from the first 60 years of the 20th century. Featured artists include: Joseph Cornell, Ellsworth Kelly, Yves Klein, Salvador Dali, Frida Kahlo, Piet Mondrian, Pablo Picasso, Diego Rivera, Andy Warhol and Paul Klee.  

"Between Art and Life: The Contemporary Painting and Sculpture Collection," This new presentation of the SFMOMA collection features works from the past five decades by Louise Bourgeois, Robert Gober, Eva Hesse, Anish Kapoor, Sherrie Levine, Brice Marden, Gordon Matta-Clark, Barry McGee, Bruce Nauman, Robert Rauschenberg and Kara Walker.  

"The Art of Design: Selections from the Permanent Collection of Architecture and Design," The exhibit will feature 100 selections from their architecture, graphic design and industrial design collections on a rotating basis. It features classic works plus new designs by up-andcoming artists.  

"Picturing Modernity: Photographs from the Permanent Collection," Photography is possibly the quintessential modern art medium because its 160-year history corresponds almost exactly with Modernism's duration as a cultural movement. This exhibit looks at the photograph's unique pictorial ability and its ever-growing pervasiveness in modern culture, putting the medium in dialogue with paintings and other kinds of art.  

KORET VISITOR EDUCATION CENTER -- This facility includes multimedia display technology, "Pick Up and Go'' guides for adults and children, art videos, and a community art gallery created by participants in school, teen and family programs. Thursday, 6 p.m. to 8:30 p.m.; Friday and Saturday, 11 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. 

SPECIAL EVENTS --  

"Tony Labat's I Want You," The latest installment in the newly launched program series "Live Art at SFMOMA.'' The artist invites denizens of the Bay Area to make their own demands of the public which riffs on the iconic "I Want You'' army recruitment campaigns of World Wars I and II, he asks you what you would do if you had only one minute to seize the voice of authority, to be the finger-pointing Uncle Sam. 

"Focus on Artists: Selections from the Collection," through May 23. This exhibition looks at SFMOMA's long-term relationships with several modern masters whose iconic works were influential in defining movements from Abstract Expressionism to Postminimalism and beyond.  

"Dispatches from the Archives," through July 6. How does a museum best known for showing the work of others choose to publicly present itself?This presentation in the Koret Visitor Education Center showcases museumproduced ephemera, design pieces, and publications, while revealing the museum's long history of innovative programming and exhibitions. The materials are culled from SFMOMA's Library and Archives, which have recently processed and catalogued thousands of items spanning the museum's 75-year history. From exhibition posters and magazines to belt buckles and chocolate bars, the exhibition illustrates the story of an institution that cherishes the spirit of innovation.  

"Ewan Gibbs: San Francisco," through June 27. This suite of drawings, commissioned by SFMOMA, offers an evocative glimpse of San Francisco's urban landscape and landmarks.  

"Long Play," through May 23. In Bruce Conner's electric "THREE SCREEN RAY'' (2006), a new acquisition premiering in this exhibition, Ray Charles's 1959 hit song "What'd I Say'' is set to an ecstatic, frenzied collage -- nude women, bomb explosions, fireworks -- of original and preexisting imagery. A tour de force of experimental film techniques, the piece features Conner's manipulations of the film surface and his signature use of countdown leader. The work's central image is Conner's 1961 film "COSMIC RAY,'' which he adapted to three screens in 1965 and later reedited to create this gallery installation of three video projections.  

"The View from Here," through June 27. Just as photography has been instrumental in shaping California's popular image, the state -- and San Francisco, in particular -- has played a key role in the history of photography as an art form.  

$7-$12.50; half price on Thursdays after 6 p.m.; free for all visitors on the first Tuesday of every month. Monday, Tuesday and Friday through Sunday, 10 a.m.-5:45 p.m.; Thursday, 10 a.m.-8:45 p.m. 151 Third St., San Francisco. (415) 357-4000, www.sfmoma.org.< 

SAN FRANCISCO PERFORMING ARTS LIBRARY AND MUSEUM  

ONGOING EXHIBITS --  

"Dance in California: 150 Years of Innovation," This permanent exhibit traces the history and artistic range of modern dance in California, with photographs and documents highlighting the achievements of Lola Montez, Isadora Duncan, Ruth St. Denis, Martha Graham, the Christensen brothers, the Peters Wright School, the company of Lester Horton, Anna Halprin and Lucas Hoving.  

"Maestro! Photographic Portraits by Tom Zimberoff," This permanent exhibit is a comprehensive study of a generation of national and international conductors. In Gallery 5.  

"San Francisco 1900: On Stage," In Gallery 4.  

"San Francisco in Song," In Gallery 3. 

Free. Tuesday-Friday, 11 a.m.-5 p.m.; Saturday, 1-5 p.m. San Francisco War Memorial Veteran's Building, 401 Van Ness Ave., Fourth Floor, San Francisco. (415) 255-4800, www.sfpalm.org.< 

SEYMOUR PIONEER MUSEUM The museum, owned by The Society of California Pioneers, houses a permanent research library, art gallery and history museum. Exhibits include a photography collection documenting California history. 

$1-$3. Wednesday-Friday and the first Saturday of the month, 10 a.m.-4 p.m. Society of California Pioneers, 300 Fourth St., San Francisco. (415) 957-1859, www.californiapioneers.org.< 

TREGANZA ANTHROPOLOGY MUSEUM AT SAN FRANCISCO STATE UNIVERSITY The museum, founded in 1968, houses collections of archaeological and ethnographic specimens from Africa, Oceania, Asia, and North America as well as small collections from Central and South America. There are also collections of photographs, tapes and phonograph records from Africa and Europe. In addition, there is an archive of field notes and other materials associated with the collections. The museum also houses the Hohenthal Gallery that is used for traveling exhibits as well as exhibits mounted by students and faculty. 

Free. Museum office: Monday-Friday, 8 a.m.-noon and 1 p.m.-4 p.m.; Hohenthal Gallery, SCI 388: Monday through Friday, 10 a.m.-4 p.m. Science Building, SFSU, 1600 Holloway Ave., San Francisco. (415) 338-2467, www.sfsu.edu/~treganza/.< 

WALT DISNEY FAMILY MUSEUM  

"Peter Pan," through June 27. Exhibiton features concept drawings, sketches, model sheets and much more.  

104 Montgomery St., San Francisco. (415) 345-6800, www.disney.go.com/disneyatoz/familymuseum/index.html.< 

ZEUM Zeum is a technology and arts museum for children and families featuring exhibits and workshops that cover a variety of fascinating subjects. 

EVENTS --  

$6-$8. 11 a.m.-5 p.m., Wednesday-Sunday. 221 Fourth St., San Francisco. (415) 820-3220, www.zeum.org.<

A GREAT GOOD PLACE FOR BOOKS -- Kathi Goldmark and Sam Barry, May 8, 7 p.m. The authors talk about "Write That Book Already! The Tough Love You Need to Get Published Now.''  

6120 LaSalle Ave., Oakland. (510) 339-8210, www.greatgoodplace.indiebound.com.< 

FIRST CONGREGATIONAL CHURCH OF BERKELEY -- Concerto Koln, May 1, 8 p.m. Program features works by Dauvergne, Bach and Vivaldi. $52. www.calperformances.org. 

2345 Channing Way, Berkeley. (510) 848-3696, www.fccb.org.< 

HERTZ HALL AT THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, BERKELEY -- 

May 4: University Baroque Ensemble performs works by Bach, Vivaldi, Telemann and Charpentier.  

May 5: Chamberbridge performs new works by American and Swiss composers.  

Bancroft Way and College Ave., Berkeley. (510) 642-4864, www.music.berkeley.edu.< 

ISLAMIC CULTURAL CENTER OF NORTHERN CALIFORNIA -- "Hold the Light for Haiti and Chile," April 30, 6-9 p.m. Poets include San Francisco Poet Laureate Diane di Prima, former California Poet Laureate Al Young and many others read to benefit earthquake victims. $5-$10.  

1433 Madison St., Oakland. < 

MOE'S BOOKS -- Roddy Doyle, May 7. The author talks about "The Dead Republic.''  

10 a.m.-11 p.m. daily. 2476 Telegraph Ave., Berkeley. (510) 849-2087, www.moesbooks.com.< 

ASHKENAZ -- "I Like My Bike Night," First Friday of the month, 9 p.m. This monthly series brings bicycle innovators, enthusiasts, artists and organizations together under one roof, as well as encourages regular Ashkenaz show-goers to leave their cars in the driveway and arrive at the venue by bicycle instead. $8-$25.  

1317 San Pablo Ave., Berkeley. (510) 525-5054, www.ashkenaz.com.< 

BAY AREA FREE BOOK EXCHANGE -- "Free Books," Saturday and Sunday, 9 a.m.-6 p.m. Donate your unwanted books and receive new titles for free.  

10520 San Pablo Ave., El Cerrito. (510) 526-1941, www.bayareafreebookexchange.com.< 

CALIFORNIA GENEALOGICAL SOCIETY AND LIBRARY -- "California Genealogical Society and Library Free First Saturday," 10 a.m.-4 p.m. Event takes place on the first Saturday of every month, 10 a.m.-4 p.m. Trace and compile your family history at this month's open house event. Free. www.calgensoc.org. 

2201 Broadway, Suite LL2, Oakland. (510) 663-1358.< 

CHABOT SPACE AND SCIENCE CENTER -- State-of-the-art facility unifying science education activities around astronomy. Enjoy interactive exhibits, hands-on activities, indoor stargazing, outdoor telescope viewing and films. 

Center Admission: $9-$13; free children under 3; Movies and evening planetarium shows: $6-$8. Telescope viewing only: free. Wednesday-Thursday, 10 a.m.-5 p.m.; Friday-Saturday, 10 a.m.-10 p.m.; Sunday, 11 a.m.-5 p.m. 10000 Skyline Blvd., Oakland. (510) 336-7300, www.chabotspace.org.< 

FOX THEATER -- "Notes and Words 2010," May 6, 6 p.m. Featuring music and spoken word from Blame Sally, Meklit Hadero, Mike Errico, Kelly Corrigan and Ayelet Waldman. $250-$10,000.  

1807 Telegraph Ave., Oakland. (510) 452-0438.< 

JACK LONDON AQUATIC CENTER -- "Oakland Artisan Marketplace,"' Saturdays, 11 a.m.-6 p.m.; Sundays, 10 a.m.-4 p.m. The City of Oakland and Cultural Arts & Marketing Department presents a weekly market featuring fine arts and crafts of local artists. Free. (510) 238-4948, www.oaklandartisanmarketplace.org. 

115 Embarcadero, Oakland. < 

MARSTON CAMPBELL PARK -- "Spring Into the Garden," May 8, 1-5 p.m. Event combines fun activities, nutrition, farming-related themes and lots of digging in the dirt.  

Market and 16th St., Oakland. www.obugs.org.< 

BERKELEY PACIFIC FILM ARCHIVE -- Exploring cinema from the Bay Area and cultures around the world, the Pacific Film Archive offers daily film screenings, including rare and rediscovered prints of movie classics; new and historic works by world famous directors; restored silent films with live musical accompaniment; retrospectives; and new and experimental works. Check Web site for a full schedule of films.  

"First Impressions: Free First Thursdays," first Thursday of every month. Special tours and movie presentations. Admission is free. 

Single feature: $5-$8; Double feature: $9-$12 general. PFA Theater, 2575 Bancroft Way, Berkeley. (510) 642-5249, www.bampfa.berkeley.edu.< 

BERKELEY, MORRISON LIBRARY -- "Lunch Poems,'' First Thursday of the month, 12:10-12:50 p.m.  

2600 Bancroft Way, Berkeley. (510) 642-3671.< 

AURORA THEATRE COMPANY -- CLOSING -- "John Gabriel Borkman," by David Eldridge, through May 9, Tuesday, 7 p.m.; Wednesday-Saturday, 8 p.m.; Sunday, 2 and 7 p.m. After serving eight years in prison for embezzlement, Borkman plans a comeback. $15-$55.  

Aurora Theatre, 2081 Addison St., Berkeley. (510) 843-4822, www.auroratheatre.org.< 

BERKELEY REPERTORY THEATRE -- CLOSING -- "Girlfriend," by Todd Almond, through May 9, Tuesday, Thursday and Friday, 8 p.m.; Wednesday, 7 p.m.; Saturday, 2 and 8 p.m.; Sunday, 2 and 7 p.m. Boy meets boy in this dual-Romeo duet that's innocent -- and sweet. $27-$71.  

2025 Addison St., Berkeley. (510) 647-2949, (888) 4BR-Ttix, www.berkeleyrep.org.< 

THE MARSH BERKELEY -- CLOSING -- "East 14: True Tales of a Reluctant Player," through May 8. "East 14th'' chronicles the true tale of a young man raised by his mother and ultra-strict stepfather. $20-$35.  

The Gaia Building, 2120 Allston Way, Berkeley. Info: (415) 826-5750, Tickets: (800) 838-3006, www.themarsh.org.< 

MASQUERS PLAYHOUSE -- CLOSING -- "The Apple Tree," through May 1, Friday and Saturday, 8 p.m.; Sunday, 2 p.m. Play is based on "The Diary of Adam and Eve'' by Mark Twain, "The Lady or the Tiger?'' by Frank R. Stockton and "Passionella'' by Jules Feiffer. $20.  

105 Park Place, Point Richmond. (510) 232-4031, www.masquers.org.< 

BERKELEY ART MUSEUM AND PACIFIC FILM ARCHIVE --  

"Soul's Light,'' May 9, 3 p.m. Program features works by Rossi, Barber, Whitacre and others. $8. (415) 331-5544. 

2626 Bancroft Way, Berkeley. < 

CROWDEN MUSIC CENTER --  

Kay Stern and Joan Nagano, May 2, 3 p.m. Violinist Stern and pianist Nagano perform works by Geminiani, Enescu, Ravel and Monti. $25. (510) 527-7500. 

1475 Rose St., Berkeley. (510) 559-6910, www.crowdenmusiccenter.org.< 

FIRST CONGREGATIONAL CHURCH OF BERKELEY --  

Concerto Koln, May 1, 8 p.m. Program features works by Dauvergne, Bach and Vivaldi. $52. www.calperformances.org. 

"Bach St. John Passion," May 2, 4 p.m. California Bach Society presents this beloved work in concert. $10-$30. (415) 262-0272. 

"Sea to Shining Sea," May 6, 8 p.m. Program features works by Barber, Bolcom and Copland. $32-$54. (415) 357-1111. 

"Spring Concert and Silent Auction," May 8, 6:30 p.m. Program features works by Ralph Vaughn Williams, Edvard Grieg, Charles Griffes, Igor Stravinsky and Aaron Coplan. $12-$15. (510) 849-9776, www.ypsomusic.net. 

"Rockin' Robin,'' May 9, 3-5 p.m. San Francisco Chamber Orchestra presents the world premiere of a new violin concerto by Composer in Residence Gabriela Frank. Free. (415) 248-1640, www.sfchamberorchestra.org. 

2345 Channing Way, Berkeley. (510) 848-3696, www.fccb.org.< 

HERTZ HALL AT THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, BERKELEY --  

May 4: University Baroque Ensemble performs works by Bach, Vivaldi, Telemann and Charpentier.  

May 5: Chamberbridge performs new works by American and Swiss composers.  

"A Symphony of Psalms," May 1, 8 p.m. Program features works by Stravinsky, Brotniansky, Gretchaninoff, Rachmaninoff and Part. $5-$15.  

University Symphony Orchestra, May 7 through May 8, 8 p.m. David Mines conducts a program featuring works by Schumann and Shostakovich. $5-$15. (510) 642-9988. 

Bancroft Way and College Ave., Berkeley. (510) 642-4864, www.music.berkeley.edu.< 

SAINT MARY MAGDALEN CHURCH --  

"Music for Lorenzo De' Medici and Maximilian I: Isaac's Missa 'La Bassadanza','' May 2, 5:30 p.m. MusicSources presents a liturgical reconstruction of this work with organ allternatim and plainchat for the Order of the Golden Fleece.  

2005 Berryman St., Berkeley. (510) 526-4811, www.marymagdalen.org.< 

ST. DAVID OF WALES CHURCH --  

"'The Spanish Bach' Music of Antonio de Cabazon and His Age,'' May 7, 11 a.m. Program features works by Cabezon, Hans Buchner, William Byrd, J.P. Sweelinck and Cabezon-Despre. Free.  

5641 Esmond Ave., Richmond. < 

ST. JOSEPH THE WORKER CHURCH --  

"J.S. Bach in B Minor," May 8 through May 9, Saturday, 8 p.m.; Sunday, 4:30 p.m. The Berkeley Community Chorus and Orchestra presents this celebrated work.  

1640 Addison St., Berkeley. (510) 843-2730, www.stjtwc.org.< 

ST. MARK'S EPISCOPAL CHURCH OF BERKELEY --  

"Sacred and Profane Presents Madness and Mirth," May 7, 8 p.m. Program features works by Benjamin Britten, Per Norgard, Geoffredi Petrassi and William Bergsma. $15-$20. (415) 388-5899, www.scrdprofane.org. 

2300 Bancroft Way, Berkeley. (510) 848-5107, www.stmarksberkeley.org/.< 

ST. MARY MAGDALENE CHURCH --  

"La Bassadanza," May 2, 5:30 p.m. MusicSources presents a liturgical reconstruction of Heinrich Isaac Missa's work. $15-$20. (510) 528-1685. 

Canconier, May 2, 5:30 p.m. Program features a liturgical reconstruction of Missa's "La Bassadance'' with organ alternatim and plain chant.  

2005 Berryman St., Berkeley. < 

TRINITY CHAMBER CONCERTS --  

Suzanne Macahilig, May 8, 8 p.m. The pianist performs works by Beethoven, Mendelssohn and Chopin. $8-$12.  

$12 general; $8 seniors, disabled persons and students. Trinity Chapel, 2320 Dana St., Berkeley. (510) 549-3864, www.trinitychamberconcerts.com.<

A century ago, theatre changed. The first “modern” play was The Seagull by Anton Chekhov. The usual theater fare then was melodrama which was considered to be high art. The Seagull was people just talking, expressing their innermost longings, mired in incontrovertible conflicts of the heart, and locked in a “union of opposites.” When it opened in St. Petersburg, the audience response was hostile. The actress playing Nina was so frightened that she lost her voice mid-performance, and Chekhov hid backstage after the first act. But fellow playwright and producer Nemirovich-Danchenko saw the play’s potential and three years later in 1898 convinced C. Stanislavski to direct it for their Moscow Art Theatre. The rest is history. The MAT brought its work to NYC in the ‘20’s, the crowd gasped when actors just behaved and engaged in such startling and ground-breaking staging as turning their back on the audience while conversing. It overwhelmed the audience with a naturalism that set a new tone and mode which would be the forefather of film acting. The crest of the Moscow Art Theatre still bears a seagull.  

Many famous playwrights since have had a shot at adapting this seminal play, among them The Notebook of Trigorin in 1981 by Tennessee Williams (who said The Seagull was his inspiration to write plays), Tom Stoppard in 1997, and now Emily Mann with her SEAGULL IN THE HAMPTONS now playing at Shotgun Players at their Ashby Stage home.  

Taking Ms. Mann’s wholly accessible work, Reid Davis has directed a seamless, marvelously cast version. Ms. Mann has set in a familiar yet parallel place where actors and writers still might keep a summer house. She spices it with recognizable references (Meryl Streep, Peter Brooks, Judy Dench, New Yorker cartoons, Red Bull fueled pre-show nerves, boom-boxes) and adapts the dialogue to post-post-modern phrasing which is much closer to the subtext of the original lines, and thereby suits this pseudo-modern century’s more candid, “out-there” parlance. Reid Davis wisely cast the actors and each fulfills the well-written roles of fully-formed, compelling portraits of recognizable characters and their motivations regardless of the size of their role. It’s a play about relationships—and even a touch of the “Gossip Girl” soap opera with so many dalliances between the characters—but full of philosophical and psychological insight. I attended Wednesday last, late in the run. It has played to very positive reviews; after seasoning through weeks of performance, it soared.  

Chekhov has had a bum rap as being boring. It’s hard to read. The problem has been the clunky translations by academics using formal language that betrayed the conversational tone, the foreign and complicated Russian names that are hard to keep track of, and the directing of it as a “holy theatre” dramatic piece rather than the comedy that Chekhov specifies it to be. The play rides the line between satire and comedy; it makes fun of art-obsessed theatre people, writers and their minions while contrasting them to regular hardscrabble folks who work for a living yet live in awe of the superstars. It masterfully invokes the ironic mode in which we don’t want to be those people and we stand outside the fray and laugh at them; then at other times in the empathetic mode, we walk in their shoes and our hearts go out to them. Emily Mann reveals, “If I see another one of these Seagulls that doesn’t get a laugh and everyone’s in a corset, I’m going to scream. Chekhov was a stage rat. He knew what a funny line was. He knew actors. He understood what would and wouldn’t work on stage. He understood the humor in everyday misery….” (Read her entire interview at http://www.mccarter.org/Education/seagull/html/6.html) 

The maker and shaker of this little world is the Queen Bee middle-aged actress Maria (Irina Arkadina in Chekhov). Trish Mulholland is the perfect technicolor diva with moods turning on a dime; if Maria weren’t an actress, we would call her bipolar with a narcissistic personality disorder. She is the materfamilias, the provider who bounces from stingy to beneficent, and the ultimate “cougar” in ringlets who plans never to age. I foresee an award for this performance; it would be worth it to go just to see her dominate everyone including her younger lover who she straddles and browbeats with her mercurial moods and mind-games. 

Kelsey Ventner plays the giddy, overprotected, star-struck Nina with wonderful physical expressiveness, movingly nubile in her sun dress. All the men drool, and she is irresistible with her innocence. The Greeks, who had a word for every dramatic device, used the term “pharmakos” for the sacrificial lamb which “a man passing by, for want of anything better to do, destroys,” and she personifies that archetype. The fishing-hole scene with the writer Philip (Trigorin) is a dance of mutual moths to mutual flames. The director’s choreography in this and the countless arrivals and departures of the large cast goes unnoticed in its artistry unless you’re looking for it, which is high praise.  

Brooding, abandoned Alex—Chekhov’s Treplev the son—is played by Liam Callister with an appropriately inherited manic-depressive temperament as a cautionary character out of Columbine High who seems to be a danger to himself or others. His apple-cheeked countenance and little boy haircut plays in counterpoint to his radical alienation and melancholy. His strange, symbolist monologue about Creation and Apocalypse are more relevant today than in 1898, since we now know about the Big Bang, tectonic plate movement, entropy, evolution, and global warming. 

There are great moments throughout, from the pre-show “turn off your cell” announcement done in character by the Caretaker Lorenzo played by Mark Manske and his Wife Paula played by Beth Dietchman who interrupt one another like any contemporary bickering couple. There is a moment between Harold (Medvedenko in Chekhov) played by with nerdy aplomb by Andy Alabran who worships Milly (Masha in Chekhov) who rejects him for the unrequited love of Alex. He is eating vanilla wafers, and puts one on her thigh for her; she brushes it away, wasting food and insulting his offer; he puts another, again brushed away, and another, until she relents and eats one—it serves as a foreshadowing metaphor in dumb-show for the way he wears her down to eventually giving in to him.  

Philip (Trigorin the writer) is played with 30-year-old charm and reserve by Alex Moggridge. At 30-ish, you can still hit on 18-year-olds while you have a sugar-mama. His confession about his obsession with writing—and the old artist’s dilemma they joke about that, no matter how tragic or desperate the situation, there is a little voice in the back of the head saying, “Remember this; you can use it.”—is Chekhov’s personalized perspective. Moggridge takes us through the convoluted thought-process of the monologue without missing a beat or an implication. Chekhov put himself into the work through Philip/Trigorin the obsessed writer as well as through the doctor, here called Ben (Dr. Dorn in Chekhov), a Silver Fox who has an affair with the groundskeeper’s wife, flirts with Nina, and has an ancient thing with Maria. Chekhov was a doctor who forsook his practice for writing, and was an extraordinarily handsome man who was---what is the Russian word for catnip?—to the ladies. If there is a moderator, it is Ben played by British actor John Mercer whose dialect and manner set him apart in this role and keeps him outside the fray.  

Robert Broadfoot’s set of a sandy beach L-shaped dock with sunken piers and two platforms behind provide a playable platea for summer sunning under a Tommy Bahama beach umbrella and the outdoor stage where the theatrical conflict begins. The entire stage is framed by the receding wooden arches of the old church. The addition of rattan furniture takes us inside for more summer behind-closed-doors drama. By reconfiguring and covering the furniture, we enter a dark living room and move to winter. Backed by a hanging beachscape panoramic painting which lighting designer Matthew Royce uses to bounce light off of to truly transport us to the beach in the various seasons (sky light that this East Coast boy remembers well). This production is a model of collaboration, and the smooth and motivated scene changes are an object lesson for all incipient directors. Sound designer Erik Pearson’s quirky, invocative choices of entr’acte music (Sinatra’s “Summer Wind” to “I Pagliacci”) serves as tongue-in-cheek commentary while setting the mood.  

Easy summer wear of plaid or white Bermuda shorts and other classy beachwear allows us to relax into the naturalism of the play but costumer Victoria Livingston Hall has some real fun with Uncle Nicky’s (Sorin) blue blazer, white trousers, pink necktie and deck shoes for the closeted gay portrayal done so deftly by Richard Louis James (Nicholas/Sorin); the outfit could be out of Noel Coward or “La Cage aux Folles.” Her costuming of Anna Ishida (Milly/Masha) in dark clothes and Doc Marten boots provides inspiration for the actress’s spirited and transforming portrayal of a rebellious, defensive, antsy, cigarette-smoking, alcohol- abusing petulant Goth teenager with a crush on all artists, who in Act Two turns into an alcohol- abusing, burdened, husband-loathing wife who settled for second-best. Little touches like simple ripped jeans for the penniless Alex, then a hooded sweatshirt for a quick scene of rejection of his mother and her lover evokes Hamlet’s “too much in the sun/son” moment ---the original play is rife with Hamlet quotes and parallel—or at minimum reminds us of the Unibomber. 

Emily Mann had two hits here in the 80’s: Still Life about coming home from Viet Nam which won six Obies, and Execution of Justice about the People vs. Dan White that the old Eureka Theater commissioned. SEAGULL AT THE HAMPTONS premiered with her directing her own work at the McCarter Theater Center in Princeton, New Jersey, in 2008 where she is artistic director, and has adapted three other Chekhov favorite. 

A word about the theater experience at Shotgun: Shotgun is hip and friendly. As you walk up to it, it reaches out to meet you with ever-changing painted info on the outside wall and a real, old-time marquee outlined in light bulbs that you expect to starting “chasing.” Box officer Jonathan Kreuze greeted us at the door attired in red shirt, black tie and jacket and snappy straw porkpie hat. Jonathan is genuinely gregarious, and was welcoming two older subscribers, bestowing free tickets for champagne and logo-ed water bottles to them. The lobby and entrance walls are painted a happy burnt umber; you walk down a little labyrinth (a short reorienting trip to the Magical Realm) to an open theater that used to be a church where you sit in pews. You can buy hard liquor and take it to your seat just like in British theaters. The staff is authentically amiable in a relaxed way, and there are almost no hard edges to the experience. The only drawback is that the pews have no cushions on the back—an easily fixed yet heretofore seemingly overlooked situation that older attendees have complained of. Most theater audiences are of an age when this discomfort conflicts with their enjoyment of the production, so I hope they it fix it soon. 

SEAGULL IN THE HAMPTONS  

Presented by Shotgun Players, Patrick Dooley, artistic director 

At Ashby Stage, 1901 Ashby Ave., Berkeley (at Martin Luther King Jr. Way) across from Ashby BART station.  

Final three showings Fri 4/30 & Sat 5/1 at 8 pm and Sun 5/2 at 5 pm.  

Run Time: Two hours and ten minutes including the intermission 

Tickets/info www.shotgunplayers.org or 510-841-6500 ext. 303. 

Written by Emily Mann. Directed by Reid Davis; sets by Robert Broadfoot, costumes by Victoria Livingston Hall, lighting by Matthew Royce, sound by Erik Pearson, properties by Adriane Roberts, dramaturgy by Karl Soehnlein. 

WITH (Chekhovian counterparts roles added): Andy Alabran (Harold/Medvedenko), Liam Callister (Alex/Treplev), Beth Deitchman (Paula/Polina), Anna Ishida (Milly/Masha), Richard Louis James (Nicholas/Sorin), Mark Manske (Lorenzo/Shamrayev), John Mercer (Ben/Dorn), Alex Moggridge* (Philip/Trigorin), Trish Mulholland* (Maria/Irina Arkadina), Kelsey Venter* (Nina). *Members of Actors’ Equity 

John A. McMullen II is a local reviewer, teacher and director. You can reach him at EyeFromTheAisle@gmail.com 

Tony Judt is a distinguished scholar, historian, writer, and academic, born in England and based mostly in America. Of his thirteen earlier books, I have read only one. Presently, I am working my way through his 2005 masterpiece Postwar: A History of Europe since 1945. I am more familiar with his highly informed and probing reviews and essays in the New York Review of Books. One of those NYReview essays (December 17, 2009) grew into this book.  

I picked it up and put it down half a dozen times—deciding to finish it/not to finish it, to review it/not to review it. My ambivalence came from two sources: the subject matter and the conditions under which was written—both of which are depressing to dwell on.  

First, the conditions: the book was dictated—for the same reason that Judt’s last three pieces in the NYReview were dictated: at 62, Judt is in the later stages of ALS (Lou Gehrig’s Disease), immobilized except for his still barely viable vocal apparatus and his totally acute and aware brain (both evident during a recent telephone interview by Terri Gross on “Fresh Air.”) About this condition, the book says nothing, except for his brief acknowledgement and thanks to people who helped. As for the subject matter, Judt departs from his usually cool, fact-packed historical analysis to summarize our present condition, for “the young especially,” citing a “duty to look critically at our world . . .if we think we know what is wrong, we must act upon that knowledge.” His tone of urgency, as well as his command of reasoning and memory, is that of an eloquent deathbed statement rarely attainable outside the world of fiction. 

The title comes from two lines of a long poem by Oliver Goldsmith (“The Deserted Village,” 1770, mourning the destruction of a way of life by a law that forced English farmers off their land and into industrial cities.) 

 

“Ill fares the land, to hastening ills a prey, 

Where wealth accumulates, and men decay.”

Judt clearly lays out overlapping theses: that the general health and contentment of a society is based less on the total wealth of that society than on the spread of that wealth being “not too unequal.” The history of Western Europe, of England, and of the United States, he says, shows the broader sharing of wealth starting in the late 19th century and reaching a peak in the social legislation of the 1930s Depression, this “less unequal” arrangement holding until the 1970s. “Over the past thirty years we have thrown all this away,” retaining somewhat more of it in Europe, less in Thatcher/Blair England, and much less in America, from Reagan to Bush. 

Judt takes the old saying about those who don’t know their history being condemned to repeat it, and adds a dimension: those who have forgotten or never lived through the pre-New Deal to Great Society years, have no idea how grim life was for most people before Social Security, unemployment insurance, government mandated safety laws in industry, etc etc. We should, he says, be fiercely fighting to protect social legislation and government regulatory powers, resisting “privatization” and shouts of “socialism,” used as a synonym for some sinister plot against “freedom.” The very real danger is that we will lose what we have by taking it for granted, by lack of memory, lack of experience, and through sheer lack of imagination. Judt takes upon himself, in what must be a final statement, the work of explaining, reminding, laying out the dimming facts, the short history of nations moving toward becoming “good societies,” bequeathing to a couple of generations, “security, prosperity, social services, and greater equality.” Far from being “socialism,” this good society, was necessarily mixed: “social democracy was always a mongrel politics.” 

He offers a vivid but simple metaphor for this mixture. “Imagine a classic railway station (one of those) cathedrals of modern life.” Enterprises like newsstands, shops, or coffee bars in and near the station are best run by private enterprise, competing and surviving according to the quality of their goods and service. “But you cannot run trains competitively by placing two trains on a track and waiting to see which performs better, like two brands of butter on a supermarket shelf.” Exploring simple images like this, he expresses the obvious spheres of private versus public function, disposing of misused justifications for privatization, like “efficiency”; a really “efficient, privatized” railroad would never bother to lay track through sparsely-populated areas. But the role of government ownership or regulation is not to be “efficiently” profitable—it is to bind the country together. From his train station image we can all cite similar examples: “efficient” public schools would expel slow learners with special needs; “efficient” public libraries would buy only the few vapid best-sellers read by the most people.  

(If all this should seem to be obvious and clear to everyone, don’t forget one example of present confusion that Judt didn’t need to cite, the mostly sadly hilarious and widely quoted objection to universal health care: “The government should keep hands off my Medicare!” Hello?) 

This is a hard book to review because of the temptation to quote from page after page of his compressed but simple, clear explication. At one moment I decide I am learning nothing new by reading it; a moment later, I am rereading one page or another, admiring the connections he makes that help me to more deeply understand and affirm what I “know.” 

So just buy the book, or insist that your library buy it, read it, then pass it on to one of the young people Tony Judt wants to reach before he dies. 

ILL FARES THE LAND by Tony Judt (2010), 237 pages, Penguin Press, NY, $25.95 

Kaua’i is an extraordinary place to see seabirds. Kilauea National Wildlife Refuge on the North Shore hosts nesting Laysan albatrosses, red-footed boobies, and wedge-tailed shearwaters. The boobies occupy a wooded slope above the ocean; we watched them bringing in twigs as nesting material. The albatrosses, mostly unpaired adolescents and supersized chicks, use a nearby hill. Almost literally underfoot, the shearwaters had excavated burrows right at the edge of a paved path. Great frigatebirds, long-winged piratical creatures, nest elsewhere but come to Kilauea to steal fish from the hapless boobies. 

With all that, I’d have to say that our most memorable seabird encounters involved tropicbirds. Two species breed in the Hawai’ian Islands, the white-tailed (koa’e kea in Hawai’ian) and the red-tailed (koa’e ‘ula). Tropicbirds are sleek, long-winged birds, somewhat like terns in appearance except for the pair of elongated feathers that extend from their tails. As you would expect, these streamers are red in the red-tailed tropicbird and usually white in the white-tailed, although we saw one individual white-tail with salmon-pink streamers. The red-tail’s feathers were used in traditional Hawai’ian regalia. 

Although we saw red-tails only at Kilauea, we ran into at least a white-tailed tropicbird or two almost every day: in Waimea Canyon, near Poi’pu on the South Shore, at Wailua and ‘Opaeka’a falls on the east side. We watched them gliding above W. S. Merwin’s folding cliffs in the Kalalau Valley, in and out of the constantly moving fog. When a stray sunbeam hit them, their white plumage lit up. 

Tropicbirds have traditionally been assigned to the order of birds that includes pelicans, cormorants, anhingas, gannets, boobies, and frigatebirds, with which they share totipalmate feet: all four toes connected by webbing. But a major phylogenetic study in 2008 grouped them in a lineage that included pigeons and doves, sandgrouse, grebes, and flamingos. Their fossil record is sparse, although 50-million-year-old remains in England have been attributed to a tropicbird or close relative. 

Superbly adapted for flight, tropicbirds have small, weak legs and feet that are barely adequate for terra firma. “When they move short distances, they shuffle forward by pushing with both feet and falling forward on their bellies,” writes Craig Harrison in Seabirds of Hawaii: Natural History and Conservation. They don’t swim well either. But in flight they’re grace incarnate, turning and twisting to capture flyingfish, squid, mackerel scad, and sauries, or to evade a pursuing frigatebird. Red-tailed tropicbirds can pick off flyingfish on the wing. 

Tropicbird courtship is aerobatic. We did not get to see the courtship flight of the white-tailed tropicbird, in which a pair glides in tandem, the male’s tail streamers touching the female’s back. However, we caught the red-tails’ performance at the Kilauea refuge: a half-dozen birds facing into the wind and back-pedaling so as to leapfrog their neighbors. This is accompanied by the strident vocalizations that led sailors to call them bosun birds, for the sound of the boatswain’s whistle. 

The two species have different nesting habitat preferences. Red-tails lay their single egg under concealing vegetation on flat clifftops overlooking the sea. White-tails use crevices in inland canyons, often near waterfalls. Twice we watched a white-tail spiral down toward a cliff face and suddenly disappear into an undetectable cavity in the rock wall. These birds also nest on the rims of the still-active craters of the other Kilauea on the Big Island, about as predator-proof a site as you can imagine. 

Both sexes incubate the single egg. Depending on site availability, red-tails can be loosely colonial, but they are far from neighborly. 

Harrison says they have vicious tempers. Nestlings are sometimes killed during territorial battles between adjacent pairs. White-tail 

nests are more dispersed, and much harder for biologists to reach. 

A cultural sidebar: the annual Merrie Monarch hula competition took place at Hilo on the Big Island while we were on Kaua’i. (The monarch in question: King David Kalakaua, who helped rehabilitate the hula after its suppression by missionaries.) The winning group this year, Ke Kai O Kahiki, performed a tropicbird-inspired routine including a jumping move called kenapulu that evoked the birds’ diving maneuvers. You can see it on YouTube. 

They did not, however, try to imitate the backward-circling dance of the red-tailed tropicbird. That’s something I would happily pay to see.  

Spring showers will give way to local, native, wildflowers this weekend as a number of local homeowners invite the public into their gardens. 

This Sunday is the 6th Annual Bringing Back the Natives Garden Tour, featuring several Berkeley and Berkeley-area gardens. 

The focus of the free tour is, as the name implies, growing California native species in the home garden. The gardens typically range from those of native purists—who don’t water, and exclude all introduced species—to gardens where native and drought-tolerant species predominate but also harmonize with other plantings. 

Some are designed by professionals, others homemade and homegrown. They range from a few hundred square feet in the flatlands to extensive and complex properties in the Berkeley hills.  

Berkeley sites include the Fleming Garden on Shasta Road, where the owners began gardening with natives in the 1950s and have created a spectacular hillside native enclave above an artificial stream, and swimming pool.  

The tour brochure describes it as “the leading native plant garden in private ownership in California” and, having visited before, I can tell you it’s a sight to see. There’s a front yard grove of native trees with a shady wall covered with native ferns; around the back of the house a switchback path climbs an artfully gardened slope into the sun and Bay views. 

The garden of Glen Schneider on California Street is also a tour regular. It’s intended to be “reminiscent of what the Berkeley flats might have looked like prior to the arrival of Europeans” and is planted with only native species gathered by seed or cutting within three miles of the garden. 

There are 12 gardens open in Berkeley, Albany, El Cerrito, and the southern tip of Richmond for this tour, and several in Oakland and Alameda, plus others further afield over the hills, from Pinole to Livermore to Martinez and Moraga. Four of the Berkeley gardens are listed as new to the tour since last year. 

A number of public gardens, school gardens, research gardens, and native plant nurseries will also be featured on the tour. They include the ever-fascinating California Native Bee Garden (on the University of California’s Oxford Tract, just northwest of the campus), the Alameda Butterfly Habitat in a schoolyard, and the Native Here Nursery in Berkeley. 

Native Here—at 101 Gold Course Links Road in Tilden Park—will also be open on Saturday for special sales. East Bay Wilds nursery in Berkeley will be selling plants on Sunday. 

The tour runs from 10 am to 5 pm on Sunday, May 2. Children are allowed but must be “closely supervised”. Pets are not allowed. 

It’s too late to order a tour brochure on line, but you can register in person on the morning of the tour and pick one up. You need a brochure to get the tour maps, detailed printed garden descriptions and locations, and tear-out tokens for admission. 

The gardens are also extensively described, with some pictures, on the Bringing Back the Natives website, so you can take a look in advance for the ones that might be of most interest. 

The Berkeley “walk-in” registration site is 1344 Carlotta Street—which is also one of the open gardens. But don’t go there before 10 am on Sunday. The website also lists nine other scattered registration gardens. 

The tour is free—funded by government agency and private grants and donations--but this year the organizers have included a prominent appeal in the brochure asking attendees to consider voluntarily donating $10 minimum per person (for the whole tour, not each garden). There will be donation jars at the open gardens. 

See bringingbackthenatives.net for more tour details. 

Note: this tour always seems to conflict with the annual Berkeley Architectural Heritage Association (BAHA) House Tour which this year also takes place on Sunday the 2nd. I’m going to the House Tour which is in the afternoon and features nine spectacular Julia Morgan homes. However, I’ve learned from experience of past years that it’s possible to visit at least two or three of the local native gardens starting at 10:00 am and still get to the BAHA Tour in plenty of time. Both events can be enjoyed. 

Steven Finacom is on the Board of the Berkeley Architectural Heritage Association, and has written for the Planet about numerous community, garden, and historic events.) 

BAY AREA RAIL TRAILS -- A network of trails converted from unused railway corridors and developed by the Rails to Trails Conservancy.  

BLACK DIAMOND MINES REGIONAL PRESERVE RAILROAD BED TRAIL -- This easy one mile long rail trail on Mount Diablo leads to many historic sites within the preserve. Suitable for walking, horseback riding, and mountain biking. Accessible year round but may be muddy during the rainy season. Enter from the Park Entrance Station parking lot on the East side of Somersville Road, Antioch.  

IRON HORSE REGIONAL TRAIL -- The paved trail has grown into a 23 mile path between Concord and San Ramon with a link into Dublin. The trail runs from the north end of Monument Boulevard at Mohr Lane, east to Interstate 680, in Concord through Walnut Creek to just south of Village Green Park in San Ramon. It will eventually extend from Suisun Bay to Pleasanton and has been nominated as a Community Millennium Trail under the U.S. Millennium Trails program. A smooth shaded trail suitable for walkers, cyclists, skaters and strollers. It is also wheelchair accessible. Difficulty: easy to moderate in small chunks; hard if taken as a whole.  

LAFAYETTE/MORAGA REGIONAL TRAIL -- A 7.65 mile paved trail converted from the Sacramento Northern Rail line. This 20-year old trail goes along Las Trampas Creek and parallels St. Mary's Road. Suitable for walkers, equestrians, and cyclists. Runs from Olympic Boulevard and Pleasant Hill Road in Lafayette to Moraga. The trail can be used year round.  

OHLONE GREENWAY -- A 3.75-mile paved trail converted from the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe railway. Suitable for walkers, strollers and skaters. It is also wheelchair accessible. The trail runs under elevated BART tracks from Conlon and Key Streets in El Cerrito to Virginia and Acton Streets in Berkeley.  

SHEPHERD CANYON TRAIL -- An easy 3-mile paved trail converted from the Sacramento Northern Rail Line. The tree-lined trail is gently sloping and generally follows Shepherd Canyon Road. Suitable for walkers and cyclists. It is also wheelchair accessible. Begins in Montclair Village behind McCaulou's Department Store on Medau Place and ends at Paso Robles Drive, Oakland. Useable year round. 

Free. (415) 397-2220, www.traillink.com.< 

BAY AREA RIDGE TRAIL -- The Bay Area Ridge Trail, when completed, will be a 400-mile regional trail system that will form a loop around the entire San Francisco Bay region, linking 75 public parks and open spaces to thousands of people and hundreds of communities. Hikes on portions of the trail are available through the Bay Area Ridge Trail Council. Call for meeting sites.  

ALAMEDA COUNTY -- "Lake Chabot Bike Rides." These rides are for strong beginners and intermediates to build skill, strength and endurance at a non hammerhead pace. No one will be dropped. Reservations required. Distance: 14 miles. Elevation gain: 1,000 feet. Difficulty: beginner to intermediate. Pace: moderate. Meeting place: Lake Chabot Road at the main entrance to the park. Thursday, 6:15 a.m. (510) 468-3582.  

ALAMEDA-CONTRA COSTA COUNTY -- "Tilden and Wildcat Bike Rides." A vigorous ride through Tilden and Wildcat Canyon regional parks. Reservations required. Distance: 15 miles. Elevation gain: 2,000 feet. Difficulty: intermediate. Pace: fast. Meeting place: in front of the North Berkeley BART Station. Wednesday, 5:30 p.m. (510) 849-9650. 

Free. (415) 561-2595, www.ridgetrail.org.< 

BERKELEY CITY CLUB TOURS -- Guided tours through Berkeley's City Club, a landmark building designed by architect Julia Morgan, designer of Hearst Castle. 

Free. The last Sunday of the month on the hour between 11 a.m.-1 p.m. 2315 Durant Ave., Berkeley. (510) 848-7800, www.berkeleycityclub.com.< 

BLACK PANTHER LEGACY TOUR -- A bus tour of 18 sites significant in the history of the Black Panther Party, conducted by the Huey P. Newton Foundation. By reservation only. 

$25. West Oakland Branch Library, 1801 Adeline St., Oakland. (510) 884-4860, www.blackpanthertours.com.< 

CAMRON-STANFORD HOUSE -- The Camron-Stanford House, an 1876 Italianate-style home that was at one time the Oakland Public Museum, has been restored and furnished with appropriate period furnishings by the Camron-Stanford House Preservation Association. It is the last Victorian house on Lake Merritt's shore. Call ahead to confirm tours and hours. 

$3-$5; free children ages 11 and under when accompanied by a paying adult; free the first Sunday of the month. Third Wednesday of the month, 1-5 p.m. 1418 Lakeside Drive at 14th Street, Oakland. (510) 444-1876, www.cshouse.org.< 

CASA PERALTA -- Once the home of descendants of the 19th-century Spanish soldier and Alameda County landowner Don Luis Maria Peralta, the 1821 adobe was remodeled in 1926 as a grand Spanish villa, using some of the original bricks. The casa features a beautiful Moorish exterior design and hand painted tiles imported from Spain, some of which tell the story of Don Quixote. The interior is furnished in 1920s decor. The house will be decorated for the holidays during the month of December. Call ahead to confirm hours. 

Free but donations accepted. Friday-Sunday, 11 a.m.-3 p.m. 384 Estudillo Ave., San Leandro. (510) 577-3474, (510) 577-3491, www.ci.sanleandro. ca.us/sllibrarycasaperalta.html.< 

CHABOT SPACE AND SCIENCE CENTER -- State-of-the-art facility unifying science education activities around astronomy. Enjoy interactive exhibits, hands-on activities, indoor stargazing, outdoor telescope viewing and films.  

CLOSE TO HOME: EXPLORING NATURE'S TREASURES IN THE EAST BAY -- A yearlong program of monthly talks and Saturday outings about the natural history of the East Bay. In this hands-on program learn about the plants, wildlife and watershed of the East Bay's incredibly rich and dynamic bioregion. The 11 Saturday outings will take place in either Alameda or Contra Costa counties. The 10 talks at the Montclair Presbyterian Church will be on the Monday prior to the Saturday outing. A notebook of relevant readings and resources for each outing is available to all participants for an additional $30 per person. The program is cosponsored by the Oakland Museum of California, BayNature Magazine and Earthlight Magazine. Fee for the year covers all outings, talks, site fees, orientation and a party. 

"Wildlife Corridors," May 3. Join Jim Hale, wildlife biologist who is currently tracking cougars, badgers and river otters in the East Bay. 

"Creek Seekers Express," May 8, 9 a.m.-3 p.m. Climb aboard Amtrak at Jack London Square and ride to Martinez with Christopher Richard, curator of Aquatic Biology at the Oakland Museum of California. The 14 creeks that the trip will pass over all connect to the bay and each one has its own story. Check Web site for more field trip details. 

$375 per person for yearlong participation; $30 additional for binder with written materials. Montclair Presbyterian Church, 5701 Thornhill Drive, Oakland. (510) 655-6658, (510) 601-5715, www.close-to-home.org.< 

EUGENE O'NEILL NATIONAL HISTORIC SITE -- Closed on New Year's Day. Visit Eugene O'Neill's famous Tao House and its tranquil grounds. Phone reservations required for a ranger-led, twoand-a-half-hour tour. Tours are given Wednesday through Sunday at 10 a.m. and 12:30 p.m. Please note: The National Park Service provides a free shuttle van for transportation to Tao House. Access via private vehicle is not available. 

Free but reservations required. Wednesday-Sunday. 1000 Kuss Road, Danville. (925) 838-0249, www.nps.gov/euon.< 

FIFTY-PLUS ADVENTURE WALKS AND RUNS -- The walks and runs are 3-mile round-trips, lasting about one hour on the trail. All levels of ability are welcome. The walks are brisk, however, and may include some uphill terrain. Events are held rain or shine and on all holidays except Christmas and the Fifty-Plus Annual Fitness Weekend. Call for dates, times and details. 

Free. (650) 323-6160, www.50plus.org.< 

FOREST HOME FARMS -- The 16-acre former farm of the Boone family is now a municipal historic park in San Ramon. It is located at the base of the East Bay Hills and is divided into two parts by Oak Creek. The Boone House is a 22-room Dutch colonial that has been remodeled several times since it was built in 1900. Also on the property are a barn built in the period from 1850 to 1860; the Victorian-style David Glass House, dating from the late 1860s to early 1870s; a storage structure for farm equipment and automobiles; and a walnut processing plant. 

Free unless otherwise noted. Public tours available by appointment. 19953 San Ramon Valley Blvd., San Ramon. (925) 973-3281, www.ci.sanramon. ca.us/parks/boone.htm.< 

GOLDEN GATE LIVE STEAMERS -- Small locomotives, meticulously scaled to size, run along a half mile of track in Tilden Regional Park. The small trains are owned and maintained by a non-profit group of railroad buffs that offer rides. Come out for the monthly family run and barbeque at the track, offered on the fourth Sunday of the month.  

Free. Trains run Sunday, noon-5 p.m.; Rides: Sunday, noon-3 p.m., weather permitting. Grizzly Peak Boulevard and Lomas Cantadas Drive at the south end of Tilden Regional Park, Berkeley. (510) 486-0623, www.ggls.org.< 

GOLDEN STATE MODEL RAILROAD MUSEUM -- 2010 season opens April 4. The museum, which is handicapped accessible, features extensive displays of operating model railroads constructed and operated by the East Bay Model Engineers Society. Covering some 10,000 square feet, steam and modern diesel-powered freight and passenger trains operate in O, HO and N scales on separate layouts as well as narrow gauge and trolley lines. Of special interest is the Tehachapi Pass and Loop on the N-scale layout showing how the multiple engine trains traverse the gorges and tunnels, passing over themselves to gain altitude to cross Tehachapi Summit just east of Bakersfield. The layouts include such famous railroad landmarks as Niles Canyon, Donner Pass and the Oakland Mole where transcontinental passengers were ferried across San Francisco Bay from their arriving trains. VIEW THE LAYOUTS ONLY ON WEDNESDAYS AND SATURDAYS; WATCH TRAINS RUN ON THE LAYOUTS ON SUNDAYS. 

$2-$4 Sunday, $9 family ticket; free on Wednesday and Saturday. April-November: Saturday-Sunday, noon-5 p.m.; Wednesday, 11 a.m.-3 p.m. December: layouts are operational on weekends. Miller-Knox Regional Shoreline, 900-A Dornan Dr., Point Richmond. (510) 234-4884, www.gsmrm.org.< 

GONDOLA SERVIZIO -- "Gondola Servizio." Weather permitting. Take a ride around Lake Merritt in a real Venetian gondola rowed by a Venetian-style gondolier. The boats of Gondola Servizio were built by hand in Venice. Each gondola seats up to six people and reservations are required.  

September-May: Wednesday-Sunday, 5 p.m.-midnight; June-August: Daily, by appointment. Lake Merritt Sailboat House, 568 Bellevue Ave., Oakland. (866) 737-8494, (866) 737-8494, www.gondolaservizio.com.< 

JOHN MUIR NATIONAL HISTORIC SITE -- The site preserves the 1882 Muir House, a 17-room Victorian mansion where naturalist John Muir lived from 1890 to his death in 1914. It was here that Muir wrote about preserving America's wilderness and helped create the national parks idea for the United States. The house is situated on a hill overlooking the City of Martinez and surrounded by nine acres of vineyards and orchards. Take a self-guided tour of this well-known Scottish naturalist's home. Also part of the site is the historic Martinez Adobe and Mount Wanda.  

Public Tours of the John Muir House, Begin with an eight-minute park film and then take the tour. The film runs every 15 minutes throughout the day. Wednesday through Friday, 2 p.m.; Saturday and Sunday, 1 p.m., 2 p.m. and 3 p.m.  

MOUNT WANDA -- The mountain consists of 325 acres of grass and oak woodland historically owned by the Muir family. It offers a nature trail and several fire trails for hiking. Open daily, sunrise to sunset. 

JOHN MUIR HOUSE, Tours of this well-known Scottish naturalist's home are available. The house, built in 1882, is a 14-room Victorian home situated on a hill overlooking the city of Martinez and surrounded by nine acres of vineyards and orchards. It was here that Muir wrote about preserving America's wilderness and helped create the national parks idea for the United States. The park also includes the historic Vicente Martinez Adobe, built in 1849. An eight-minute film about Muir and the site is shown every 15 minutes throughout the day at the Visitor Center. Self guided tours of the Muir home, the surrounding orchards, and the Martinez Adobe: Wednesday-Sunday, 1 a.m.-5 p.m. Public tours or the first floor of the Muir home: Wednesday-Friday, 2 p.m.; Saturday-Sunday, 2 p.m. and 3 p.m. Reservations not required except for large groups.  

$3 general; free children ages 16 and under. Wednesday-Sunday, 10 a.m.-5 p.m. 4202 Alhambra Ave., Martinez. (925) 228-8860, www.nps.gov/jomu.< 

LAWRENCE BERKELEY NATIONAL LABORATORY -- Scientists and engineers guide visitors through the research areas of the laboratory, demonstrating emerging technology and discussing the research's current and potential applications. A Berkeley lab tour usually lasts two and a half hours and includes visits to several research areas. Popular tour sites include the Advanced Light Source, The National Center for Electron Microscopy, the 88-Inch Cyclotron, The Advanced Lighting Laboratory and The Human Genome Laboratory. Reservations required at least two weeks in advance of tour. Wear comfortable walking shoes. Photography is permitted. Due to heightened security after Sept. 11, 2001, tour participants will be asked for photo identification and citizenship information. Tours are periodically available by special request. Contact the Community Relations Office, (510) 486-7292, for additional information. To add your name to a list of potential public tour participants, email community@lbl.gov. 

Free. 10 a.m. University of California, 1 Cyclotron Road, Berkeley. (510) 486-7292, www.lbl.gov.< 

MOUNT DIABLO SUMMIT MUSEUM -- The museum is located in a historic stone building atop Mt. Diablo's highest peak and features ongoing exhibits that chronicle the history of the mountain. An instructional video examines the geological forces that created the mountain and panel displays describe the Native American history of the region. A diorama provides an overview of the mountain's ecosystems. Telescopes are mounted on the Observation Deck so visitors can enjoy one of the finest views in the world. 

Museum: free; Park entrance fee: $5-$6 per vehicle. Daily, 10 a.m.-4 p.m.; Park hours: daily, 8 a.m.-sunset. Oak Grove Road or North Gate Road, Walnut Creek. (925) 837-6119, (925) 837-6119, www.mdia.org/museum.htm.< 

MOUNTAIN VIEW CEMETERY WALKING TOURS -- Take a three-hour, docent-led walking tour of this cemetery, designed by renowned architect Fredrich Law Olmsted, where many historical figures, both local and national, are buried. 

Special Events, "Memorial Day Commemoration,'' May 25, 10 a.m. The Mountain View Cemetery honors all veterans with a traditional placing of the wreath and a 21 gun salute, followed by a dove release. The event also features keynote speaker Capt. Keith J. Terro, Commanding Officer of Integrated Support Command in Alameda. 

Free. Second Saturday of the month, 10 a.m.-1 p.m. 5000 Piedmont Ave., Oakland. (510) 658-2588, www.mountainviewcemetery.org.< 

NIMITZ WALK -- A level, paved walk originally constructed when the army was considering putting a missile site in the hills above Berkeley. Near Inspiration Point; from San Pablo Dam Road turn west onto Wildcat Canyon Road in Orinda. The entrance to the walk, and a parking lot, is at the top of the ridge. This is an easy hike for people of all ages and especially ideal for the very old, the very young, and the disabled. Bicycles and roller blades are allowed. 

Free. Daily, sunrise-sunset. Tilden Park, near Inspiration Point, Berkeley Hills. (510) 525-2233, www.ebparks.org.< 

PARDEE HOME MUSEUM -- The historic Pardee Mansion, a three-story Italianate villa built in 1868, was home to three generations of the Pardee family who were instrumental in the civic and cultural development of California and Oakland. The home includes the house, grounds, water tower and barn. Reservations recommended. 

$5; free children ages 12 and under. House Tours: Monday-Saturday, 10 a.m.-4 p.m.; Sundays by appointment. 672 11th St., Oakland. (510) 444-2187, www.pardeehome.org.< 

RUTH BANCROFT GARDEN -- One of America's finest private gardens, the Ruth Bancroft Garden displays 2,000 specimens from around the world that thrive in an arid climate. Included are African and Mexican succulents, New World cacti, Australian and Chilean trees, and shrubs from California. 

DOCENT TOUR SCHEDULE -- Saturdays, 10 a.m. Docent-led tours last approximately an hour and a half. Plant sales follow the tour. By reservation only. $7; free children under age 12.  

SELF-GUIDED TOURS -- Monday-Thursday, 9:30 a.m.-noon; Friday, 9:30 a.m.; Saturday, 9:30 a.m. and 5 p.m.; Sunday, 5 p.m. Self-guided tours last two hours. No reservations required for weekday tours; reservations required for Friday and Saturday tours. Plant sales follow the tours. $7; free children under age 12.  

Gardens open only for tours and special events listed on the garden's telephone information line. 1500 Bancroft Road, Walnut Creek. (925) 210-9663, www.ruthbancroftgarden.org.< 

SCHARFFEN BERGER CHOCOLATE FACTORY -- This hour-long tour covers the history of chocolate making, from the cultivation of cacao beans to the finished product. After a chocolate tasting, visitors take a walking tour of the factory floor. Open to children 10 and up. Reservations required. 

Free with reservation. Every hour on the half-hour, 10:30 a.m.-4:30 p.m. 914 Heinz Ave., Berkeley. (510) 981-4066, www.scharffenbergertour.com.< 

SHADELANDS RANCH HISTORICAL MUSEUM -- Built by Walnut Creek pioneer Hiram Penniman, this 1903 redwoodframed house is a showcase for numerous historical artifacts, many of which belonged to the Pennimans. It also houses a rich archive of Contra Costa and Walnut Creek history in its collections of old newspapers, photographs and government records. 

$1-$3; free-children under age 6. Wednesday and Sunday, 1 p.m.-4 p.m.; Closed in January. 2660 Ygnacio Valley Road, Walnut Creek. (925) 935-7871, www.ci.walnut-creek.ca.us.< 

SULPHUR CREEK NATURE CENTER -- A wildlife rehabilitation and education facility where injured and orphaned local wild creatures are rehabilitated and released when possible. There is also a lending library of animals such as guinea pigs, rats, mice and more. The lending fee is $8 per week.  

Free. Park: Tuesday-Sunday, 10 a.m.-5 p.m.; Discovery Center: Tuesday-Saturday, 10 a.m.-4:30 p.m.; Animal Lending Library: Saturday-Sunday, 10 a.m.-3 p.m.; Wildlife Rehabilitation Center: daily, 10 a.m.-4:30 p.m. 1801 D St., Hayward. (510) 881-6747, www.haywardrec.org/sulphur_creek.html.< 

USS HORNET MUSEUM -- Come aboard this World War II aircraft carrier that has been converted into a floating museum. The Hornet, launched in 1943, is 899 feet long and 27 stories high. During World War II she was never hit by an enemy strike or plane and holds the Navy record for number of enemy planes shot down in a week. In 1969 the Hornet recovered the Apollo 11 space capsule containing the first men to walk on the moon, and later recovered Apollo 12. In 1991 the Hornet was designated a National Historic Landmark and is now docked at the same pier she sailed from in 1944. Today, visitors can tour the massive ship, view World War II-era warplanes and experience a simulated aircraft launch from the carrier's deck. Exhibits are being added on an ongoing basis. Allow two to three hours for a visit. Wear comfortable shoes and be prepared to climb steep stairs or ladders. Dress in layers as the ship can be cold. Arrive no later than 2 p.m. to sign up for the engine room and other docent-led tours. Children under age 12 are not allowed in the Engine Room or the Combat Information Center.  

$6-$14; free children age 4 and under with a paying adult. Daily, 10 a.m.-4 p.m. Pier 3 (enter on Atlantic Avenue), Alameda Point, Alameda. (510) 521-8448, www.uss-hornet.org.<

Highly acclaimed pianist Sarah Cahill will inaugurate the Berkeley Arts Festival at 8 pm on Saturday, May 1, performing a program of exciting piano music, including of Annie Gosfield's Five Characters Walk Into a Bar (2010), Eve Beglarian's Night Psalm (2009), Terry Riley's Fandango on the Heaven Ladder (1994), Balinese Ceremonial Music arranged by Colin McPhee/Evan Ziporyn (2007), Tania Leon's Mistica (2003), selections from Larry Polansky's B'midbar (2009), Guy Klucevsek's Don't Let the Boogie Man Get You (2005), and selections from Mamoru Fujieda's Begonia in My Life (2009).  

The Dazzling Divas will appear at the Berkeley Arts Festival on Sunday, May 2, 2010 at 8 pm 

Opera Divas Pamela Connelly, Kathleen Moss and Eliza O’Malley light up the hall with arias, duets and trios from celebrated operas of Puccini, Verdi, Bellini, Bizet, Delibes and more, with master pianist Hadley McCarroll. Come indulge yourself in a dazzling evening of opera's top hits with these Bay Area favorites. 

The Berkeley Arts Festival will run for the the entire month of May at 2121 Allston Way, the future home of the Judah L. Magnes Museum in downtown Berkeley. It is across the street from Cancun Taqueria and Gather. Donation $10 

For the entire calendar see berkeleyartsfestival.com.  

Any old messiah can turn water into wine. But wine into water? That takes a community effort. 

This Saturday, May 1, the Friends of the Kenney Cottage Garden group is holding a wine event at their garden on Fifth Street in West Berkeley. Several vintages and varieties of donated wine, chocolate, cheese, and other snacks will be available.  

A modest $10 donation requested from each attendee will help the group hook up a connection to East Bay MUD water—thus the theme. 

The event runs from 2:30 to 6:30 pm at 1629 Fifth Street, just north of Virginia. The location is just around the corner from trendy Fourth Street.  

Drop by any time, have some refreshment, view the evolving gardens and talk to the community gardeners. A plant nursery, cisterns, and garden beds are up.  

The garden—on a block of Victorian homes and light industrial uses—is turning into a rare community oasis in a neighborhood with few open spaces and public facilities. 

The Fifth Street lot, currently owned by the City of Berkeley Redevelopment Agency and leased to the Northern California Land Trust, is planned for a permanent community garden and is also the proposed site of the historic Elizabeth Kenney Cottage.  

In conjunction with the garden effort, the NCLT, Berkeley Architectural Heritage Association, and FKCOG—all non-profit groups—are working to raise funds and plan to bring the one story 1880s wooden dwelling to the front of the lot. 

The Cottage is the oldest building surviving from early Downtown Berkeley (it once stood on Addison, below Oxford) and is a unique, prefabricated, structure designed and manufactured in Berkeley. It’s currently on a temporary University Avenue site. 

The three groups hope to bring it home to West Berkeley where it would be refurbished, in the midst of the community garden, as a neighborhood community and arts center. 

You can find more information on the garden group at fkcog.org  

(Steven Finacom is on the Board of Berkeley Architectural Heritage and is involved with the fundraising effort for the Kenney Cottage). 

If you want to get dirt under your fingernails in a productive cause, there’s an opportunity this weekend. 

It’s “Kassa-The First Annual Urban Adobe Festival”. A organization dedicated to building with natural materials—including Adobe brick—has put together the festive event, which includes food and music, to create a supply of adobe bricks for building projects later in the year. 

The event is sponsored by Vertical Clay, a “natural building company and school” based in the East Bay.  

Sunday’s event is modeled on age-old gatherings in West African villages. “Making adobes is something best done in a group, and a group is happier when there is music”, the organizers say on the Vertical Clay website.  

“The Malinke people know this better than anybody; kassa in their tradition is a ritual, very energetic, interchange between work and music…we are borrowing loosely from their tradition to throw an adobe party! Come help us celebrate.” 

Anyone is welcome to show up, says Sasha Rabin, one of the leaders of Vertical Clay. Children are welcome, and people can come for as short or as long as they wish. The activity is free. It runs from 12 noon to 5 pm on Sunday, May 2. 

The organizers suggest that people wear work clothes—it’s working by hand with clay, after all. Attendees are also encouraged to bring food to share. 

If you’re interested in going, the event is at 2314 Howe Street in Berkeley. Howe is a one block long street, running between Telegraph and Ellsworth in south central Berkeley. It enters the west side of Telegraph just north of Ashby. 

The activities will also connect through the back yard to the large Chevron service station parking lot at the northwest corner of Ashby and Telegraph. 

Vertical Clay does both building projects and teaches hands-on classes in the use of natural building materials—“adobe, cob, earthbag/superadobe, straw-clay, clay wattle, wattle-and-daub, earth and lime plasters, earthen floors, and certain kinds of bamboo and strawbale construction.”  

They’ve worked with the B-Tech Academy at Berkeley High School to build a cob oven. In El Sobrante they’re involved with “Villa Sobrante”, a project that is retrofitting a 1940s house with natural building techniques and experimenting with various construction techniques for outbuildings on the 1/3 acre property.  

Raw materials for the Berkeley event will come from El Sobrante. 

This is the First Annual building event. Will there be more? “Our idea is to continue the event every year in the East Bay at different sites,” Rabin says. 

This Sunday, says Rabin, they hope to construct about 300 building blocks. They’ll be earmarked for construction of a courtyard and garden wall at another site. 

See the Vertical Clay website for more about Sunday’s event, and about classes and on-going activities. 

You can also call (928) 243-2243 for more information, and see the Villa Sobrante blog.  

With previews starting Friday, April 30 at 8, at the Berkeley City Club: TERRORISTKA, a new play by Rebecca Bella, directed by Jessica Holt for Threshold Theatre (which began in a Berkeley directors workshop), based on a true story Bella heard while a Fulbright Fellow in Russia, of a young Chechen woman, recruited to be a suicide bomber, journeying to Moscow, told in verse and song. With sound design by Greg Scharpen and costumes by Tammy Berlin, both of Central Works. Thursdays through Saturdays, 8 p. m.; Sundays at 5 2315 Durant Ave. $12-$29. (415) 891-7235; thethresholdproject.blogspot.com  

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The Marsh, which continues their presentation of Don Reed's E. 14th, True Tales of a Reluctant Player, an Oakland coming-of-age comedy, through June 30th on their main stage in the Gaia Building (2120 Allston Way, near Shattuck), will open their cabaret in the former Anna's Jazz Island with The Amazing Bubble Man in THE WORLD'S FUNNIEST BUBBLE SHOW, at 11 a. m. May 2, through June 27. Also coming up: Nina Wise's unique improv, WHAT JUST HAPPENED? Fridays at 9, Saturdays at 8, May 7-22, and Anne Randolph's solo show LOVELAND, May 8 (Saturdays at 5, Sundays at 6) through June 13--all in the Cabaret. Various prices. (415) 826-5750; themarsh.org  

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It's the last weekend for GREAT EXPECTATIONS, the Dickensian epic by Barbara Field at Contra Costa Civic Theatre, directed by Jeremy Cole (who's worked wonders with both Actors Ensemble and SubShakes). $11=$18. Friday-Saturday, 8; Sunday at 2Pomona Ave. at Moeser Lane, El Cerrito. 524-9132; ccct.org  

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Actors Ensemble continues with Sam Shepard's CURSE OF THE STARVING CLASS, directed by Robert Estes and starring a raging Holly Bradford, among others. Friday/Saturday, 8 p. m. through May 22 (plus Thursday, May 20 at 8), Live Oak Theater, 1301 Shattuck, near Berryman. $12-$15 649-5999; aeofberkeley.org