Two women escaped from a fire in a Berkeley apartment building this morning, a deputy fire chief said.

Shortly after 9 a.m., firefighters received a report of a blaze in an apartment building in the 3100 block of King Street, about three blocks west of the Ashby BART station, Berkeley fire Deputy Chief Avery Webb said.

Reports of people trapped on the top floor of a three-story building, prompted a two-alarm response, Webb said. -more-

The BUSD Board of Education received a report at Wednesday night’s board meeting on the completion of the South of Bancroft Project at Berkeley High School. Superintendent Donald Evans was pleased to announce that the project finished approximately two weeks ahead of schedule, and $6,600,000 under budget. -more-

Friday, September 12, 2014 will mark the four year anniversary of the murder of Adolfo Ignacio Celedon Bravo, known to his family as “Fito”. -more-

Tonight, the External Affairs Committee of the Associated Students of the University of California, Berkeley voted unanimously to indefinitely postpone a bill condemning the academic boycott of Israel. -more-

Below is a response to the coverage on the upcoming Soda Series event mentioned in this post:

Thanks for your coverage of our upcoming Westbrae Biergarten event -- every little bit helps and we hope you can join us for some additional coverage that night. We will be showing several very powerful Youthspeaks videos related to the topic which will be sure to stimulate discussion. With respect to your statement regarding the ironic nature of the location I would like to raise several different points: -more-

Next Thursday, Scottish voters will be voting on whether or not to remain a part of the United Kingdom. That very fact saddens me. As I see it, it marks a dramatic failure of politics, for which my present inclination is to blame the Westminster government. -more-

UC Berkeley Chancellor Nicholas Dirks sent this message to the campus community today:

Every fall for the last many years, we have issued statements concerning the virtue of civility on campus. This principle is one of several that Berkeley staff, students, faculty and alumni themselves developed and today regard as “fundamental to our mission of teaching, research and public service.” To quote further from our “principles of community”: “We are committed to ensuring freedom of expression and dialogue that elicits the full spectrum of views held by our varied communities. We respect the differences as well as the commonalities that bring us together and call for civility and respect in our personal interactions.” For a full list of these stated principles, please see http://berkeley.edu/about/principles.shtml. -more-

With its recent announcement of seizing another 1,000 acres of Palestinian land, Israel has forever dispelled the last lingering doubts that it is serious in allowing a Palestinian State to exist This is another slap in the face of US stated policies which has vigorously opposed the theft of Palestinian land. -more-

People who are well placed often look down on those who are needy. Right now we are in the middle of a tense debate over the minimum wage. The Democrats want the minimum wage to rise soon so fewer indigent people will need to depend on government subsidies. But our Republican friends hate this idea. -more-

Friday, September 12, 2014 will mark the fourth anniversary of the murder of the Chilean citizen Adolfo Celedon in a crime committed by unknown people. The Consulate General of Chile in San Francisco regrets the tragic death of an innocent young person, which occurred in Berkeley, California, when he was walking home with his fiancee on the day of his 35th birthday. -more-

The ceasefire comes at a time when the Ukrainian military has suffered a number of humiliating defeats at the hands of the Russian-backed rebels. 2,600 people have been killed and over one million displaced. -more-

Dear Chancellor Dirks,

The Free Speech Movement Archives and the Organizing Committee for the FSM 50th Anniversary would like to thank you for generously supporting our efforts to commemorate the Free Speech Movement, and to keep the memory of those events alive. We look forward to seeing you at our reunion. In the spirit of civil discourse, we would like to bring to your attention some history regarding the question of what the Free Speech Movement was about, what we won, and what it means for the campus today. -more-

Rudolph Hurwich – serial entrepreneur and mentor, international businessman, inventor, philanthropist, investor and a behind-the-scenes supporter of numerous liberal causes and creative endeavors – died peacefully at his Oakland home on August 2, 2014. He was 92. -more-

Wolf von dem Bussche, a longtime Berkeley resident whose photographs are in many public and private collections, died in Mission Viejo CA on August 12 at age 80. -more-

"... in my experience demands for civility almost always come from people who have forfeited the right to the respect they demand." -more-

Although negative political ads take a toll, in most elections voters respond to positive messages. 2014 may prove to be an exception to this rule, as Republicans have waged a relentlessly negative campaign. Their strategy is to fire up their base, drag in a few independents, and win based upon voter turnout. Republicans are assuming that most Independents and many Democrats won’t show up because they are turned off by politics. Suppose this strategy works and Republicans control both the Senate and the House of Representatives. What can we expect?

The core Republican message is paradoxical: elect us because we don’t like government. This was Mitt Romney’s 2012 presidential campaign pitch: “As President… I will cut marginal tax rates across the board for individuals and corporations... I will repeal burdensome regulations, and prevent the bureaucracy from writing new ones… Instead of growing the federal government, I will shrink it.” Romney’s blanket solution to America’s problems was a reprise of the discredited maxims of Reaganomics: government is the problem; helping the rich get richer will inevitably help everyone else; and markets are inherently self correcting and therefore there’s no need for government regulation – whether the problem is bank fraud or polluted water. Republicans have continued these same themes in 2014. -more-

What’s a crone? I’m referring to the word variously used in the contexts of religion, spirituality, and witches. Ye olde Oxford English Dictionary (OED) informs that ca 1386 Geoffrey Chaucer (1343-1400) first considered crone, and that it is rarely applied to an old man. By 1844, crone was applied contemptuously when used about an old woman. -more-

If you have chronic mental illness, as I do, and if it includes low-level psychosis that persists despite taking plenty of medication, it helps to periodically do cognitive exercises in which you recognize, identify, and dismiss delusions. -more-

Vincenzo Bellini’s bel canto NORMA occupies a special place in my heart, for on May 21, 1965, as a very young man I heard Maria Callas sing this role at the Paris Opera in what was Callas’s last good performance of this or any operatic role. Eight days later, her voice strained to the limit, Callas had to withdraw after the scene with Adalgisa that concludes with the duet, “Mira, Norma,” (which closes Act III when NORMA is played in four acts). Callas then canceled the final Paris performance. Weeks later she retired, and never sang in live opera again, although some years later she made a concert tour with tenor Giuseppe DiStefano. In any case, to have heard Maria Callas sing “Casta diva” live onstage in relatively good voice remains one of my most treasured opera experiences. -more-

Barbara Dane: folk singer, blues singer, jazz singer, social activist, wife, mother, world traveler, feminist, record producer, chronic truant, maverick and general troublemaker. She sang with all the greats, from Pete Seeger to Lightning Hopkins to the Chambers Brothers to Louis Armstrong and more, and travelled the world as an independent woman and musician. The radio documentary A Wild Woman Sings the Blues takes the listener on a journey through this amazing life, from a childhood in Detroit to an eighty-fifth birthday concert at Freight & Salvage in Berkeley. Join us to pay tribute to the legendary Barbara Dane! -more-

If you like MTV videos, God Help the Girl is your treat – a feature-length, head-nodding toe-tapper drenched in popsicle colors and punched up with hip-hop editing that blends evocative background shots of Glasgow (looking like Hogwarts-by-the-Clyde) with loving, kissably large close-ups of Emily Browning as a terminally cute Glasgow indie-popper. -more-