AC Transit is beginning to comply with a judge's ruling that the bus agency must honor its old contract with workers while the two sides engage in binding arbitration for a new contract, district officials said today. -more-

The legal status of medical marijuana, and marijuana generally, is changing in these parts. Richmond, Berkeley, and Oakland all have recently made or initiated significant changes in marijuana legislation. November’s state ballot includes Proposition 19, the “Regulate, Control and Tax Cannabis Act of 2010”. Where do these changes lead? -more-

A judge issued a preliminary injunction today against AC Transit overturning a new contract that the bus agency imposed on its employees on July 18 after contract negotiations collapsed. -more-

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.


— The First Amendment to the US Constitution

In a democracy, how can there be such a thing as an “illegal assembly”? -more-

A 19-year-old University of California at Berkeley student died in an airplane crash last week while she was traveling to a soccer tournament in her home country of Pakistan, a school spokeswoman said today. -more-

A shadow is hanging over America, the shadow of a wrecked economic system. Tens of millions of unemployed remain despondent about ever finding a job again, an entire young generation despairing of any hope for a good life, while corporate market pundits pontificate that our system creates the best of all societies, and no alternative is possible. A nationwide group gathering in Berkeley this coming weekend is putting the lie to the pundits. -more-

A Note On Yiddish; Scapegoating; Syria; Meg Whitman; Spay and Neuter; The History of BP; Country or Empire; Send Them Home -more-

Latest issue of the Pepper Spray Times. -more-

As a former janitor and member of SEIU Local 87 for 19 years from 1980-1999 including my having been a shop steward, I found Teresa Mina's story "This Law is Very Unjust!" about the feds removing her from her job very heartbreaking. I am strongly opposed to immigrant bashing. I support legislation to allow undocumented immigrants to pay their fine and to become American citizens, and the process for people to become citizens must be speeded up. However I do believe that Local 87 and I suppose other unions are doing very little to encourage their members to learn English, to become American citizens, register to vote, and learn about the unions that they belong to. I certainly found this to be the case with Local 87. Why didn't the Local 87 officials help members like Teresa Mina fill out their employment applications with the contractors, and see to it that they had the documents that they needed to present? -more-

As the editor of the Planet has pointed out on several occasions, the “greenest” building project is a renovation, not a replacement. This is exactly what will happen with two of Berkeley’s four branch libraries with the money from Measure FF. But two of the branches must be replaced. Here is why: -more-

On July 27, California Watch reported that Senator Wannabe Carly Fiorina accepted $25,000 in donations from Murray Energy Corporation of Cleveland, a major coal producer, whose CEO Robert Murray called global warming "hysterical global goofiness." Murray has an economic interest in the global warming debate because global warming legislation will probably restrict the burning of coal and thus, effect his economic interests. -more-

When Rabbi Michael Lerner started Beyt Tikkun Synagogue in San Francisco, it was a featured news story in the S.F. Chronicle. Rabbis who thought his brand of critique of Israel might be destructive to the Jewish community, while others thought it more appropriate to welcome him. -more-

No tickets are supposed to be given for expired residential parking permits in Berkeley until October 1, according to a notice on the city of Berkeley’s web site. -more-

An LA Times business columnist wonders why Berkeley lets BP get away with it.

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There are moments that define a war. Just such a one occurred June 21 when Special Envoy Richard Holbrooke and U.S. Ambassador to Afghanistan Karl Eikenberry helicoptered into Marjah for a photo op with the locals. It was to be a capstone event, the fruit of a four-month counterinsurgency offensive by Marines, North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) allies, and the newly minted Afghan National Army (ANA) to drive the Taliban out of the area and bring in good government. -more-

The summer of 2010 found most of the US wilting from a blistering heat wave and the Obama Administration withering from bad news about Afghanistan. Writing in Rolling Stone Michael Hastings concludes: “There is a reason that President Obama studiously avoids using the word ‘victory’ when he talks about Afghanistan. Winning, it would seem, is not really possible.” -more-

Next Friday I'm going to be the plaintiff in a small claims court trial — at least that's the plan. But according to a judge who recently spoke before the Berkeley-Albany Bar Association, there's a rather good chance that I might show up for the trial but there might not be a courtroom left to hold it in. -more-

This week: Two nifty blogs on opposite sides of some spectrum or other: -more-

Most Americans seem to view those who are mentally ill as a bit less than real human beings. After all, people with mental illnesses seem to lack basic social skills, may have poor grooming, and may come across to you as not having the same basic awareness that seems to make a person a whole person. That person smoking in front of a building and talking to himself might be one of them. That person sitting on a bench eating a sandwich while rocking her upper body forward and back also might be one of them. Mentally ill people might seem like a crude and ill-formed version of our species, a defect. -more-

“If you want peace, work for justice.” -more-

A tip of the hat to John Westlake for alerting me to the recent publication of the 51^st Supplement to the American Ornithologists’ Union checklist, essential reading for any active or recovering birder. As happens every year, the AOU has voted to accept or reject a number of proposed changes in bird nomenclature for the Western Hemisphere and Hawai’i. This includes the recognition of new species (splits), the demotion of old ones (lumps), taxonomic reshufflings at various levels, and changes in common and Latin names, sometimes just to correct the gender of the Latin. The process is an incidental boon to publishers, who can justify new editions of Peterson, Sibley, National Geographic and the other standard field guides. -more-

Washington DC is a swamp in more ways than one. But an estimated 30,000 desperate homeowners have or will be coming to DC in the middle of a heat wave to attend the Neighborhood Assistance Corporation of America’s Save the Dream event. (NACA is one of many HUD-approved housing counseling agencies trying to help homeowners modify their mortgages under HAMP.) These events bring together housing counselors and representatives from lenders and mortgage servicers in one place so homeowners can meet face to face and attempt to work out a modification and avoid foreclosure. Homeowners started lining up Thursday night outside the Convention Center, though the event didn’t open till Friday morning. -more-

"Nobody would ever call you the ethereal sort!" An arch gathering of English types, intent on having fun at a medium's expense—while one hopes to pick up a few quotable mannerisms for his book—prove the conduit from the beyond, as author Charles Condomine (Stanley Spenger) finds himself a flesh-and-blood bigamist when his late wife Elvira (Erin J. Hoffman) is summoned by Madame Arcati (Chris Macomber), making an unwitting menage-a-trois that seriously challenges his second marriage to Ruth (Shannon Veon Kase), in Noel Coward's preternaturally funny Blithe Spirit by Actors Ensemble of Berkeley at Live Oak Theater (1301 Shattuck at Berryman), Fridays and Saturdays at 8 through August 21. ($12-$15; 649-5999; aeofberkeley.org) -more-

A group of current and former UCLA students, living locally during the summer, provided Berkeley with a most charming and vigorous dramatic interlude this past week. -more-

This week, normally the high summer layover, will see a slew of activity onstage. Shotgun's opening The Norman Conquests, Alan Ayckbourn's trilogy, directed by Joy Carlin, on Friday, and Woodminster mounts that perennial summer favorite, The Music Man, in the glades of Joaquin Miller Park in the Oakland Hills, directed by Joel Schlader, with choreography by Harriet Schlader (Sadly, her husband James, co-founder with Harriet of Woodminster musicals almost a half-century ago, died in May). -more-