Students and activists protesting tuition hikes at the University of California at Berkeley vacated their occupation of a building on campus early this morning, according to university police. 

The group, which has taken on the moniker "The Open UC at Berkeley," has been occupying Wheeler Hall since the evening of Nov. 19. They left the building at 3 a.m. today, said UC police Lt. Eric Tejada. 

Tejada said there have been no altercations with protesters and no one has been arrested during the seven-day occupation on Berkeley's campus. 

"There was some vandalism done in the building -- some spray painting and things like that," Tejada said. "But, other than that, there's been nothing." 

The group of demonstrators did not say when or if they would return to their occupation of Wheeler Hall.  

"We, the Open UC at Berkeley, no longer feel the need to inhabit the Wheeler Commons at all times in order to assert our right to this space, this campus and this public institution," said a statement issued on the Facebook page, TheOpen UC. "See you Monday!" 

Students began occupying Wheeler Hall on Nov. 19 after a UC Board of Regents committee voted 7-2 in favor of a tuition hike that would increase tuitions by as much as 5 percent annually over the next five years, despite opposition from prominent public figures, including Gov. Jerry Brown and Lt. Gov. Gavin Newsom. 

Brown has argued that the university system needs to find ways to control its expenses rather than raise tuition. 

On Thursday, the full Board of Regents voted 14-7 in favor of the tuition hike, drawing further protests from students attending the meeting. 

Under the tuition proposal, a 5 percent hike would raise tuition for in-state students by $612 to $12,804 in the 2015-16 school year, according to UC President Janet Napolitano's office. Tuition for out-of-state students would increase by more than $1,700 to about $36,820.

“OUR POST OFFICE IT SHALL NOT BE MOVED”

RALLY, with Singing for a Video Shoot for You Tube

SATURDAY 6 DECEMBER 2014

12 noon to 1:00 p.m.
Berkeley’s Main Post Office
2000 Allston Way @ Milvia Street

Rain or Shine

On Saturday, December 6th at Noon come to a brief community rally at the Berkeley Main Post Office, 2000 Allston at Milvia. It will be followed by a video shoot with all who attend, singing “Our Post Office, It Shall Not Be Moved” (to the tune of We Shall Not Be Moved). 

Please feel free to wear anything you’d like, your chorus attire if you are in one,
or costumes.

We hope to get people across the country to do the same at their post offices and post their videos. If we get a few groups to participate, we can post the videos together. If we get enough, we can turn it into a video montage. We will encourage each group to add verses that reflect their struggle.

Please be at the rally on December 6th by 12:20 at the latest as we will have to organize into a visually effective group and do a couple of practice runs.

We will sing in the key of D and ask other groups to do the same so we will be able to combine the videos successfully. The words will go as follows (of course if someone comes up with a terrific line we can add it or substitute): 

Our Post Office, it shall not be moved
Our Post Office, it shall not be moved
Just like a tree that’s planted by the water
It shall not be moved
Built in 1914…
The artwork is amazing…
No to union busting…
No privatization…
Our post office… 

You do not have to be a strong singer – your enthusiasm is the most important thing. Please join us and feel free to pass this on to friends and other organizations whose members might want to join in.

I have already done this effectively on the 100th Anniversary of Woody Guthrie’s birthday in 2012, when 33 groups around the country (and in several other countries) participated on Earth Day. You can go to the following You Tube link where you can see the video montage and see what we have in mind:
Sing Out for Earth Day
and here is the video of the San Francisco shoot: SF Earth Day Sing Out 

The following is a statement by Paul W. Edmondson, general counsel and chief legal officer of the National Trust for Historic Preservation, regarding the National Trust’s decision to join the City of Berkeley in a lawsuit against the United States Postal Service for failing to comply with federal historic preservation laws prior to entering into a contract for sale of the Berkeley Main Post Office building. 

“Over the past several months, the City of Berkeley and the National Trust for Historic Preservation have been engaged in good-faith negotiations with the United States Postal Service, seeking a long-term preservation covenant for the Berkeley Main Post Office building to fulfill the agency’s obligations under federal preservation law. In October, however, the Postal Service abruptly ended the negotiations, closing off what had been a productive process and leaving the building’s potential sale shrouded in secrecy. 

“We would have preferred to resolve this matter through continued negotiations, but the Postal Service’s unwillingness to communicate its plans for the building left us no choice but to join the City of Berkeley’s lawsuit. 

“The National Trust is concerned not only with this particular historic building, but more broadly with historic post office buildings in communities throughout the nation that are being disposed of by the Postal Service without adequate measures to ensure their long-term preservation. Despite repeated requests from elected officials, preservation groups, and local citizens, the Postal Service has not come forth with a clear and consistent process for protecting these important community assets. We hope that this litigation will cause the Postal Service to rethink its entire approach to transferring ownership of its stock of historic post office buildings.” 

Additional Background: Completed in 1914, the Berkeley Main Post Office is a valued community asset in the civic core of downtown and has been an integral part of the federal government’s presence in Berkeley for 100 years. It was listed as a Berkeley City Landmark in 1980 and placed on the National Register of Historic Places individually in 1981 and as a contributing structure to the Berkeley Civic Center Historic District in 1998. ​The City filed its case against the Postal Service on November 4. The following day U.S. District Court Judge William Alsup issued a temporary restraining order, preventing the Postal Service from taking action to sell the historic building to a third party pending the government's response. A hearing is scheduled for December 11.  

The National Trust has focused on protecting historic post offices for many years because we understand that post offices occupy special places at the heart of thousands of American communities, and the Postal Service itself has noted that ‘people have long viewed their post office as much more than a place to send and receive mail.’ The Trust named Historic Post Offices to our list of America’s 11 Most Endangered Historic Places in 2012, and also named post office buildings to our portfolio of National Treasures. 

Berkeley voters voted for Tony Thurmond over Elizabeth Echols by a narrow 51.2% to 48.8% margin in the race for the Assembly seat now occupied by former Berkeley City Council member Nancy Skinner. Skinner was first elected in 2008 and could not run again because of term limits.

Thurmond received 18,200 votes in Berkeley, while Echols got 17,329.

4,649 voters who cast ballots did not vote for anyone in the Assembly race, making up 11.5% of those who voted.

Tony Thurmond won district-wide by a margin of 54% to 46%. Contra Costa County has not yet released its official final results, but current unofficial numbers show Thurmond with a 60.5% to 39.5% lead in that county.

Alameda County released its Statement of Vote for the November 4 election on Friday. The final official results show that Tony Thurmond won in the Alameda County portion of the district by 39,031 to 38,299, or 50.5% to 49.5%. The Statement of Vote includes results by precinct. 

District 15 includes parts of Alameda and Contra Costa counties. In Contra Costa County, it includes the cities of Richmond, El Cerrito, San Pablo, Pinole and Hercules. In Alameda County, it includes Albany, Berkeley, a northern piece of Oakland and Piedmont. Echols carried Piedmont with almost 60% of the vote, but Thurmond won in the other Alameda County cities. In Oakland, he defeated Echols by just 122 votes, 15,157 to 15,035. 

In the June primary election, Elizabeth Echols got 36.5% of the vote in Berkeley, while Thurmond was second with 26.8%. Pamela Price got 13.8% and Sam Kang got 8.2%. Both Kang and Price endorsed Thurmond after the primary. Both Thurmond and Echols are Democrats. 

The Vote by Council District 

In November, Thurmond won a majority in Council districts 1, 2, 3, 4, and 7. Echols came in ahead in districts 5, 6 and 8.  

Thurmond's best precincts were in South Berkeley along with one precinct in the LeConte neighborhood between Telegraph and Shattuck. He topped 60% of the vote in 8 precincts in Districts 2 and 3. He also did well with student voters, though student turnout was so low that this did not add many votes to his winning margin. 

Echols did best in the hills above Claremont Ave. and in the Northeast Berkeley hills. She received over 60% of the vote in five precincts in those areas. The vote was relatively close in District 5, won by Echols. Thurmond won four precincts in the district including the precincts immediately north and south of Solano Avenue. 

Echols was endorsed by Berkeley Mayor Tom Bates and by City Council members Maio, Moore, Capitelli, Wengraf and Wozniak. She was also the choice of outgoing Assembly member Nancy Skinner and of State Senator Loni Hancock, a former Berkeley mayor. She was also endorsed by the Sierra Club. 

Thurmond was backed by City Council members Anderson, Arreguin and Worthington and by former Berkeley mayors Shirley Dean and Gus Newport. Both candidates had labor backing, with the California Nurses Association and the California Teachers Association backing Thurmond, while the California Federation of Teachers backed Echols. Some unions, including SEIU and the Alameda County Labor Council, endorsed both of them. 

Turnout 

As previously reported, turnout in Berkeley was the lowest in 35 years for a November general election. The Statement of Vote reports that 40,301 votes were cast citywide, amounting to 50.4% of registered voters. This total is a bit higher than what was reported in the unofficial results when the post-election count of absentee and provisional ballots was finished earlier this month.  

Turnout was highest in District 5 and in District 1; it was very low in the newly formed student supermajority district, District 7, where only 1805 votes were cast, which comes to only 21% of registered voters. It was also below 50% in districts 2, 3 and 4 and in District 8 despite a hotly contested City Council race. More about turnout and how Berkeley voted in other races will appear in a subsequent article. 

UC Berkeley students opposed to the recent fee increases and continued state disinvestment in public education will demonstrate at today's Cal vs. Stanford football game. 

The students are protesting against the recent vote by the UC Board of Regents to increase fees nearly 28% over 5 years, approved Thursday at the Regents' meeting. Immediately following the announcement, students from across the UC system joined together to vocalize their discontent with the fee hike, as well as to demand state reinvestment in public education. 

Students at UC Santa Cruz, UC Davis, UCLA, UC Merced and UC Berkeley took action against the fee hikes at the Regents meeting on Nov. 19. Students at Santa Cruz and Berkeley then staged peaceful sit-ins in university buildings, and UC Davis students staged a sleep-in on the campus grounds. 

UC Berkeley students will continue their protest on Saturday's Big Game. Among other planned actions, Open UC supporters will wear green ribbons, calling attention to the increased financial burden placed on students by the state and UC regents. The aim is not to disrupt the game or the proceedings around it, but to spread awareness of the Regents' vote and its effect on students. 

In a press release from November 21, students protesting the fee increases stated, "We stand for the Open University: affordable, accessible, public education. Accordingly, we intend for our demonstration of solidarity to elicit a sincere dialogue between the members of the UC Community, Regents, and the state." Open UC will hold a general assembly at Wheeler Hall at 5 p.m. following the game.

We the students at the University of California, Berkeley and members of the UC Berkeley community joined together on Wednesday, November 19th in Wheeler Hall in protest. We oppose the UC Regents’ intention to increase UC Berkeley tuition by 27.6% over five years, despite opposition from student and faculty groups statewide. This would increase UC Berkeley yearly tuition to $15,560 for in-state students and nearly $45,000 for out-of-state students by 2020, excluding living costs. Through a facilitated democratic process we voted Wednesday night to ratify the following demands: 

1. No tuition hikes, 

2. Full transparency of UC Budget under California Assembly Bill 94, and 

3. Drop all charges against Jeff Noven, arrested at the November 19th Regent's meeting under false charges. 

While this movement began with the language of an occupation, we who have organized this space in symbolic reclamation of higher education, call it Wheeler Commons. With an awareness of our presence on Ohlone territory and with the belief that this university should be open and belong to everyone, we are not disrupting classes. We stand for the Open University: affordable, accessible, public education. Accordingly, we intend for our demonstration of solidarity to elicit a sincere dialogue between the members of the UC Community, Regents, and the state. 

In recognition of media attention our movement has attracted since its inception, and with a desire to maintain dialogue and transparency, the General Assembly that convened in Wheeler Hall at 3:00pm on Thursday, November 20th authorized the creation of an open and democratic Communication Assembly to streamline external communication. 

At this moment, Wheeler Hall is bustling with activity: students are engaging in discussions, sharing stories, tackling specific parts of the campaign through working groups, holding assemblies to mobilize, making visual and performance art, eating, cleaning, doing homework, and so on. A walkout is scheduled for Monday, November 24th at noon, coordinated with other UC’s. We are enthusiastic about working with press teams and can be reached by phone or email and can arrange interviews upon request.

All lanes of Interstate Highway 80 in Berkeley have reopened this afternoon after a big-rig caught fire and blocked traffic in the area, according to the California Highway Patrol. 

The truck fire was reported around 12:45 p.m. on westbound Highway 80 at the Gilman Street off-ramp, CHP Officer Sean Wilkenfeld said. 

An empty trailer attached to the big rig appears caught fire and was reportedly fully engulfed in flames a short time before 1 p.m., according to the CHP.  

The fire blocked the Gilman Street off-ramp and four right lanes of traffic, but all lanes and the exit were reopened around 2:40 p.m., the CHP is reporting. 

Wilkenfeld said drivers who spotted the smoke and flames alerted the driver of the big rig to the fire by honking at him. 

He was able to safely exit the truck and was uninjured, the officer said. 

Motorists in the area are advised to prepare for traffic and drive with caution. 

Students at the University of California at Berkeley are continuing a sit-in on campus today following a decision Thursday by the Board of Regents to raise tuition by as much as 5 percent a year for the next five years, university police said. 

UC Berkeley police Lt. Marc DeColoude said there have been no significant changes over the evening and no one has been arrested so far. 

The hall typically closes at 10 p.m. each evening, DeColoude said, but stayed open Thursday night as students continued to occupy it. He said he wasn't sure what would happen this weekend. 

"I don't know that the university has thought that far ahead," DeColoude said. "We'll just have to see." 

Classes are continuing in the building, DeColoude said, and protestors are coming and going but maintaining a presence of at least 60 people at any given time. 

Students began the occupation after a University of California Board of Regents committee voted 7-2 on Wednesday in favor of a tuition hike that would increase tuitions by as much as 5 percent annually over the next five years despite opposition from figures including Gov. Jerry Brown and Lt. Gov. Gavin Newsom.  

Brown has argued that the university system needs to find ways to control its expenses rather than raise tuition. 

On Thursday, the full Board of Regents voted 14-7 in favor of the tuition hike, drawing further protests from students attending the meeting. 

Under the proposal, a 5 percent hike would raise tuition for in-state students by $612 to $12,804 in the 2015-16 school year, according to UC President Janet Napolitano's office. Tuition for out-of-state students would increase by more than $1,700 to about $36,820. 

UC executive vice president Nathan Brostrom said that the 30 percent of UC students who will be impacted by the tuition increase could afford it since they come from families with annual incomes above $75,000. 

Ronald Cruz, an attorney for the activist group By Any Means Necessary has said the protestors plan to stay in the campus building until the regents agree to drop the tuition increase plan.

Since Wednesday night, students, alumni, and community members have held the building of Wheeler Hall as a direct response to the undemocratic decision to yet again raise the fees required to receive what is supposed to be a quality education from what is supposed to be a public institution. Similar events fueled Occupy Cal years ago. Several demands have been made, and the demands are evolving with the movement, but at the core, students will not leave this building until fee hikes stop. Students at Davis, Riverside, and Santa Cruz are currently acting in solidarity, with more UCs to surely join in the coming days. Protestors are asking for donations of food, bedding, people who can come to Wheeler for any amount of time. For live updates, at this time #OccupyWheeler and #fightthehike are being used.

Students and activists protesting tuition hikes remain camped out at Wheeler Hall at the University of California at Berkeley today after taking over the lobby last night, according the university's police department.  

UC Berkeley police Lt. Marc DeColoude said one to two officers have been monitoring the group, which he said varies from 50-60 people to 150 people as students come and go. 

"They're very peaceful and they're just meeting in there basically," DeColoude said. "We haven't had any issues. The classes are going on as usual." 

Students began the occupation after a University of California Board of Regents committee voted 7-2 on Thursday in favor of a tuition hike that would increase tuitions by as much as 5 percent annually over the next five years despite opposition from figures including Gov. Jerry Brown and Lt. Gov. Gavin Newsom. Brown has argued that the university system needs to find ways to control its expenses rather than raise tuition. 

Newsom and UC student regent Sadia Saifuddin cast the two dissenting votes on Thursday. Saifuddin said students feel the priorities of the state are not representing their interests or that of Californians.  

Today, the full Board of Regents voted 14-7 in favor of the tuition hike, drawing further protests from students attending the meeting. State Assembly Speaker John Perez said the vote was unnecessary and undermines the investment in higher education. 

Under the proposal, a 5 percent hike would raise tuition for in-state students by $612 to $12,804 in the 2015-16 school year, according to UC President Janet Napolitano's office. Tuition for out-of-state students would increase by more than $1,700 to about $36,820. 

Napolitano has said the university's budget shortfall was a result of public disinvestments, not university budget allocations. Unless the state increases funding for the universities, Napolitano said the tuition hike was the only foreseeable option.  

Ronald Cruz, an attorney for the activist group By Any Means Necessary, has said the protestors plan to stay in the campus building until the regents agree to drop the tuition increase plan.  

There have been no arrests throughout the day but one protestor, 21-year-old Jeff Noven, who allegedly broke a glass door while protesting at the regents' meeting, was arrested Thursday, DeColoude said

Woody Nance was born December 4^th 1938 in Troy North Carolina and died August 20^th 2014 in Los Angeles. He grew up in rural circumstances with brother Hank and sister Liz. After graduating high school in Troy, he attended Highpoint College and then Duke University as a divinity student. He moved to California in the early Sixties and was deeply involved in the Free Speech movement, which began in 1964 at the Berkeley campus. He worked as a lumper (unloading trucks on the waterfront), and as a masseuse for rock stars (he once gave a massage to Van Morrison). He lived at various communes in San Francisco.  

Woody received his Masters in Social Work from San Francisco State University and then worked in treatment centers for young people with emotional problems, where was able to use his skills of empathy and kindness. Woody Nance met Deirdre Lashgari sometime soon after the big Livermore Action Group arrest in October 1983. They married in 1992 at a ceremony in the Berkeley Rose Garden. Deirdre was finishing her PhD in Comparative Literature. Woody supported Deirdre through the many moves necessary to have an academic position.  

When Deirdre was hired by the English department at Cal State Pomona, they moved to Claremont for about eight years. They then moved to West Los Angeles to have more connection to the music and politics of that part of Los Angeles, and to have more access to the beaches and deserts which they visited regularly. Woody Nance was a supportive person, not only for Deirdre Lashgari, but for many other friends and family. When people visited their bungalow in Culver City they were treated to gourmet dinners cooked by Woody and to navigation through Los Angeles, always carefully plotted and planned with his trusty Thomas Guide.  

Woody was left heartbroken by Deirdre’s death on August 14^th, 20014. He died of a heart attack a week later. He leaves behind many friends dating back to the Free Speech Movement days, his sister Liz and all of Deirdre’s family. A website in honor of Deirdre and Woody can be found at http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~beberly/deirdre/dee.html. Contributions in memory of Deidre and Woody can be made to Western States Legal Foundation in honor of their work in the anti-nuclear movement.

Yet another chapter in the ongoing saga of “why are we all gathered here together?” Today it seems to me that it’s time to add a new tagline to what is commonly called the masthead, though I believe the real pros call it the flag. 

When the winter holidays begin, I always resent anything that takes me away from going to parties and hanging shiny stuff around the house. Once upon a time I was in the “not until after Thanksgiving” camp, but not anymore. As my eyes age I resent the way the darkness comes earlier and lasts longer. Adding a bit of extra night lighting (only LED of course) suits me just fine. Starting on the autumnal equinox is perhaps pushing it a bit, but how about starting holiday cheer when daylight saving ends, now apparently on or about Halloween? Most of the major religions (and irreligions) have some kind of festival involving lights as the night gets longer. 

This is a coy way of saying that I’m going to be slacking off for a while. And that this piece is probably getting out a bit late this week. 

Now that the election is over, Berkeley news is thin on the ground. Not surprisingly, my all-volunteer army does not consistently volunteer to go to dreary meetings of the planning commission or the zoning board. The Berkeley City Council and the Zoning Adjustment Board can be viewed online if you really care, and no one, least of all the city management, pays much attention to what’s happening on the other commissions. 

Increasingly, it’s obvious that most of what theoretically happens in public in Berkeley is actually a done deal by the time it shows up at a civic meeting. The Deep State has arrived in Berkeley. For an explanation of what that term means, see an excellent essay by Mike Lofgren which first appeared on Bill Moyers’ web site, Anatomy of the Deep State. The idea originated in Turkey, but he applies it to the United States today. He says in a footnote that he uses the term to mean “ a hybrid association of elements of government and parts of top-level finance and industry that is effectively able to govern the United States without reference to the consent of the governed as expressed through the formal political process.” 

It works for small entities like Berkeley too. 

If you have infinite patience and exactly the right kind of computer set-up, you might be able to watch the last meeting of the Zoning Adjustment Board by clicking here. If you can’t do that, the redoubtable Emilie Raguso tells you on berkeleyside.com what happened at ZAB on one key item, what’s in store for the block which now houses the Shattuck Cinemas: Locals question Berkeley Plaza impact on theater, view. 

But the Deep State aspect of the discussion isn’t covered in this otherwise competent story, though it has often been observed here and elsewhere, including on Berkeleyside. The name to search on is always Mark Rhoades, formerly the city of Berkeley’s Director of Planning, who’s now gone through the revolving door to become what’s called in the story the “project representative” for many schemes. In San Francisco they’re “permit expediters”, or more rudely, “fixers”. There’s a bunch of ex-government planners working this territory in the cities I’m familiar with. 

And if you want to get an idea about how little “the consent of the governed as expressed through the formal political process” counts in Berkeley, check out the comments on the story. The saddest one: “I voted against R, but 300 units does seem too big and will make an already busy area even more congested….” 

Well, yes. But you did get a lot of glossy developer-funded mailers that gave you a different perspective, didn’t you? Surprise! Too bad you won’t get what you voted for. 

A cynic would say that Berkeley gets what it deserves and deserves what it gets. I don’t really believe that myself, but I’m afraid that it’s getting harder and harder to counter the machinations of the Deep State with information and citizen participation. Richmond miraculously did it in the recent election, combatting Chevron’s multi-millions in propaganda with well-informed foot soldiers, but that doesn’t happen often enough. 

Chevron’s shady dealings do show up as clouds of black smoke, so they’re easier to spot. In downtown Berkeley, it may take five years before we figure out that, e.g., Patrick Kennedy’s sleazy operation has killed the Fine Arts Theater, though he promised to preserve it in order to get his permit. Like the Cheshire Cat’s grin, there’s nothing left of the Fine Arts but the marquee. 

Around here, we have spent 15 or 20 years of our supposed retirement trying to shine a light into a few of the corners that hide such nasty things. These days, without reporters on staff, we mostly rely on what comes in “over the transom”, pieces that people, most of them not professional journalists, submit on their own initiative. Getting the word out this way is good, better than not doing it, but it’s inevitably more in the category of opinion than of news. If people didn’t already care about the topic they’re discussing, they wouldn’t bother to tell us about it. 

Much of what’s online these days, whether it is or is not called “news”, is in that category. Daily print-based journalism was seldom really impartial even in the old days, but now on the internet it’s even less so. 

Many topics have been simply off limits. It’s encouraging that a major paper like the New York Times is finally reporting some part of the truth about what’s happening in Israel/Palestine, but even cautious truth-telling in that sensitive area has been a long time coming. 

The advantage of publishing information that comes in clearly marked by an interested party is that community members often know things that the Deep State thought were hidden. Whether it’s Edward Snowden or some guy who works at U.C. Berkeley as a gardener, insiders often speak more truth than the designated institutional spokespeople. Outsiders can provide yet a third take on the facts. 

But we do appreciate the lowly press release, as long it’s clearly labelled as such. When I first started news reporting, I was shocked to learn how much of what you see in conventional dailies, now even more than then, is just rewritten press releases. 

Why not just run them straight, I thought? There’s no reason to believe that a clearly written press release on the latest production from the Shotgun Theater, for example, is anything but honest—no reason to write it all over again with a few different words. 

What we haven’t done very well since we’ve been online is presenting quick takes on happening events. This is partly because I insist on real people signing their real names—my grandmother used to say “consider the source”. We do have a great line-up of regular columnists, and others send opinion emails which run in our Public Comment section, but it’s cumbersome 

With help from a tech-savvy friend of the Planet whose services we could never afford if we had to pay for them, we’re working on a quick comment system for shorter observations which should be unrolled in a week or so. It will be moderated, because you’d never believe (or maybe you would) the crazy stuff we get. We will always appreciate thoughtful observations, signed by real names, from people with whom we disagree—in fact we’d love to get them to start a lively dispute. Just nothing about End Times, please! 

So what should the new tag line be? How about “An intermittent journal of opinion and news about Greater Berkeley and beyond, updated irregularly, almost daily”? Or do you have a better idea? 

Happy Thanksgiving weekend to anyone who's online today! There will NOT be a whole new issue this week, but there WILL be important new things added as time permits, so keep on checking.

Dan O'Neill

In the movie about Edward Snowden's revelations and ordeals (Citizenfour), there is a line that pretty much characterized the current political dilemma -- instead of living in a nation made up of the elected and the electors, the major division seems to be between the rulers and the ruled. Unquestionably, democracy is declining. You are familiar with many of the problems that have been undermining democratic decision making --unlimited political spending by the corporations and the wealthy, disenfranchising of minorities and the poor by requiring voter ID cards along with other means, and election fraud. With regard to the latter, the discrepancy in voting patterns that we see by comparing exit polls with the official vote is increasing. And note what happened in Georgia. Forty thousand votes were found missing, and no explanation has so far been offered. 

The adverse consequences of the undermining of democracy is extremely serious. Economically speaking, as democracy declines, poverty and unemployment grows, and social programs are reduced and even dismantled. This is because those who are unfairly elected are mainly conservatives who oppose progressive New Deal style programs or any program that benefits the majority of our residents. According to the New York Times, the Republicans will seek to privatize Medicare. Attempts to undermine Social Security, Medicaid, and the Food Stamp Program are also on their agenda. 

What can we do to stop and reverse the tide? The bad news is that even though the Democratic Party has been weakened at the polls, it has failed to challenge the highly illegal machinations of the Republicans. The most likely explanation is to do so would be acknowledging how illegal our voting system is. This admission could set in motion a process that could raise serious questions about the legitimacy of the political system. Nixon understood this when he ran in 1960 against Kennedy for President. Although he learned about the false counting of votes on Kennedy's behalf, particularly in Illinois and Texas, he nevertheless decided against challenging the legitimacy of the vote. He warned his Republican colleagues that to do so would cause a "constitutional crisis", hurt America in the eyes of the world "and tear the country apart". Although there are certainly differences between the two major political parties, the Democratic Party is also an establishment party. 

Although we operate with many disadvantages, we also have many strengths. After all, we do have the numbers and skills. Take, for example, the victory in Richmond. Although Chevron spent three million dollars to defeat progressives, the progressives nevertheless won the mayoralty race and the City Council seats.Why? They were well organized and were continually in contact with the grass roots. We also saw that in Berkeley despite the heavy spending by the sugar coated soda industry, the initiative to discourage drinking unhealthy sodas won.  

We certainly know how to win -- find common ground between disparate groups, and be in continual contact with the grass roots. We need to take to the streets and organize continual demonstrations to best publicize our agenda and to reach as many people as possible. In my experience, the streets are an ideal venue for expanding our base.  

At a national level, progressive organizations need to link up with each other throughout the country. Doing so entails a lot of perspiration. But it appreciably improves our chances of winning.

The courageous whistleblower, Alayne Fleischmann, who exposed JPMorgan Chase’s mortgage fraud has finally moved out of the shadows and gone public. She provided details how she witnessed massive criminal securities fraud in the bank’s mortgage operations. Her story is profiled in Matt Taibbi’s new Rolling Stone investigation, "The $9 Billion Witness . .” Fleischmann accused JP Morgan of committing outright fraud by overstating the quality of mortgages it was selling to investors. When the toxic securities turned sour investors lost faith in the banking system which precipitated the housing crisis of 2008 that caused millions of home foreclosures.  

Fleischmann voiced her complete frustration in her earlier attempts to motivate the Department of Justice and the Securities and Exchange Commission to take remedial action – both seemed to be paralyzed with inaction – afraid to confront the all-powerful and politically connected bank. She complained that an iron curtain had descended between the compliance and the due diligence departments to ensure that the dirty business of toxic mortgages was well hidden. No emails were allowed between the two departments. In short a massive fraud was being perpetrated – the ‘liar loans’ were like selling like old beat up cars advertised as new. Eventually, The Justice Department was forced to act and imposed large fines on JP Morgan and other large banks and agreed to wash away all the incriminating details of the guilty corporate executives. None faced jail time and many were rewarded hefty bonuses.

Sierra Club members have an opportunity to elect a strong environmentalist to the Northern Alameda County group (NAC) Executive Committee by voting for Richard Bangert of Alameda. He deserves the support of Berkeley members, who outnumber those from other cities within the NAC jurisdiction that also includes Albany and Oakland. In the past, Berkeley and Oakland have dominated NAC, leaving the island city unrepresented. 

For the past two years I have served on the NAC Ex-Com and have enjoyed many opportunities collaborating with Richard and his wife Irene Dieter, including staffing the Club booth at Alameda Earth Day, arranging tours of the Point, gaining Club support for the Crab Cove initiative, and interviewing candidates for the Alameda City Council. In all our activities, he has shown intelligence, insight, and a helpful and engaging attitude. As I am stepping down, I strongly recommend him to fill the seat. 

He is a veteran activist on the island and writes the blog Alameda Point Environmental Report, advocating for open space and wildlife issues at Alameda Point, the former Naval Air Station. His blog articles are often reprinted in the Alameda Sun newspaper. 

Richard has been actively involved in the effort to get a key piece of shoreline federal property next to Crown Memorial State Beach transferred into the hands of the East Bay Regional Park District to expand the park. He helped persuade the Sierra Club to back the Friends of Crown Beach and their citizen initiative to rezone the parcel to open space. The City had previously changed the zoning to residential to allow for a controversial development near the Beach next to the Crab Cove Visitor Center. The initiative gathered over 6,000 signatures, prompting the Alameda City Council to pass an ordinance rather than send it to the ballot, changing the zoning to open space in favor of park use. 

A resolution of the Crab Cove situation awaits the seating of newly elected City Council members, including Mayor Trish Spencer, who unseated Marie Gilmore in a close race, Vice-Mayor Frank Matarrese, who was backed by the Sierra Club, and Jim Oddie.  

Richard currently serves as the Sierra Club representative on the Alameda Point Restoration Advisory Board (RAB), a citizen oversight committee that confers with Derek Robinson, the U.S. Navy engineer in charge of the $500 million remediation effort. In July, I met Robinson on a RAB tour of the Point, and he praised Richard’s positive contributions. 

A self-employed house painter by trade, Richard understands issues of environmental justice, including the adverse effects of pollution and flooding on the poor and disadvantaged, and the transportation and housing needs of our diverse population. 

His accomplishments include drafting the resolution that became a City of Alameda zoning ordinance declaring 511 acres of the Point as a Nature Reserve, removing an unnecessary security fence that obstructed views, and advocating for expanded wetlands and harbor seal habitat. 

Richard Bangert has a proven environmental record that demonstrates sound judgment and effectiveness that he will apply to issues concerning the entire NAC jurisdiction, not just Alameda. Look in your email box for on-line voting or The Yodeler in your post box next week, and please vote before the deadline of Friday Dec. 19th. 

Toni Mester is a life member of the Sierra Club

You're on a two-lane road in a 40-MPH zone, and the vehicle in front of you is doing twenty five. Another car is tailgating you from behind. You wait until there are no oncoming cars in the opposite lane and you begin to pass the slow car. Of course, the slow car speeds up at that point. Meanwhile, an oncoming car has appeared, and you need to gun the accelerator to avoid a head-on collision. Aborting the two lane pass is not an option--the gap in cars has closed up.  

At that point, the safety feature detects the oncoming vehicle ahead, automatically applies the brakes on your vehicle, you have a head-on collision, and you are killed.  

This example of a car designed to compensate for a bad driver, and many other innovations, are examples of how new technology is sometimes making life worse and not better.  

Technology is being increasingly designed to control the public and to herd masses of people like cattle. Important options in computer operating systems have been obfuscated, eliminated, or made to cost an extra fee. Computers are great at entertaining people, but the ability to get work done has been compromised.  

People are all but being forced to store their data on clouds. This public storage of information takes control away from the individual. We are becoming increasingly reliant upon a distant, giant authority which we are expected to trust. Automatic trust of authority involves a huge amount of naiveté.  

Audio and video recordings are now digitized. This has some good aspects, but also has problems. We, as ordinary individuals, are unable to record television onto a removable storable medium. We are reliant upon digital video recorders. The contents must be periodically erased to make room for new storage. 

I haven't seen any device that allows members of the public to keep the government honest, through storage of news events.  

The following technologies have become less usable over the last five to ten years: Vacuum Cleaners, Light Bulbs, Digital Voice Recorders as a replacement for cassette or microcassette recorders, the advent of the Digital Video Recorder and its replacement of the videocassette recorder…and computers. 

To begin with, the latest Windows computers have become more loaded with ways for Microsoft to make money off you if you want to do anything, and many of the options that once existed have been eliminated or obfuscated.  

Windows has gone the route of oversimplifying everything while making it graphically more appealing. This eliminates a lot of user choices and it is aggravating.  

Windows computers at one time came with complimentary software which included watered-down versions of Word and Excel, versions which, although not as sophisticated, were still usable. Windows XP was the definitive operating system, and since then, computers have become less usable.  

Cloud storage of your valuable data is touted as a great way to back up all of your important files. But clouds are also subject to hackers, and the companies that run them are subject to extinction. This is true only if you are foolish enough in the first place to trust a distant authority to safeguard your data.  

The banning of incandescent light bulbs has resulted in another form of class warfare. The expense of a new light bulb, if you are choosing Halogen, is much higher than their predecessor, and the bulbs burn out a lot faster. If you go the Compact Fluorescent route, there doesn't exist a reliable and convenient system to dispose of them. And with human nature being what it is, CFL's will end up in landfills.  

The argument about the mercury hazard in CFL's, in which it is said that a CFL releases less mercury than the amount you would save, given a coal burning power plant, strikes me as bogus. When a CFL breaks in your living room, you will get exposure to mercury.  

To vacuum your carpeting, a dependable vacuum cleaner that actually cleans the floors is not available at any price. You can spend hundreds of dollars on a Dyson, and you end up with something that doesn't work and which necessitates astronomical repair bills.  

The elimination of videocassette recorders means that you can no longer record and store television. Thus, you are dependent on someone at Youtube to record everything, and hope that these recordings will be preserved and not modified. The digital age has made it easier to rewrite history.  

While technology has put numerous tools into the hands of ordinary people, the industry is trying to back off from some of that. The government and the corporate mega conglomerates would like to spoon feed the information that gets to citizens and control the content.

I was trying to catch a bus to downtown Berkeley from the stop at San Pablo and Monroe Street. There was so much shattered glass strewn around the bus stop I could not find a yard of clear space in which to stand while waiting for my bus. I made my way downtown on foot because I had urgent errands to run. I had a problem with extreme littering at a bus stop in Albany two years ago. When I called the city office I was told it was AC Transit's responsibility to keep bus stop areas clean and safe. I wonder which department will take charge to ensure that needy riders of the Transit system don't have to put their safety on the line as they wait for a bus.

Democrats got shellacked on November 4th. Republicans gained at least 8 Senate seats, 12 House seats, and 3 governorships. Democratic partisans spread the blame around: President Obama, Party leaders, lethargic blue voters, and a hostile media. Nonetheless, there are five elementary lessons to be learned from the debacle. 

1. Republicans are sheep; Democrats are cats. One of the reasons that Democrats don’t do well in midterm-elections is that, like cats, they don’t take direction well. On the other hand, Republicans are like sheep. Every two years, Republican politicians bow their heads, turn towards their Washington leaders, and dutifully follow their directions. In 2014 this meant that Republican candidates universally labeled their Democratic opponent as an Obama clone and claimed that he or she “votes with Obama 99 percent of the time.” 

In contrast, the Democratic cat candidates for the 14 contested Senate seats each went their own way. As a consequence, while Minnesota Senator Al Franken made “fighting for good jobs” his central message (“we all do better when we all do better”), Colorado Senator Mark Udall denigrated his sheep opponent, Cory Gardiner, as “too extreme for Colorado.” Guess which Democrat won. 

In addition to lambasting Dems, in general, Republican leaders provided their flock with a national message of the week. In the last few weeks of the election, this segued from Obama’s alleged abuse of executive power to White House alleged incompetence dealing with ISIS to the Administration’s alleged incompetence dealing with Ebola. In contrast, Democrats didn’t have a message of the week. But even if they had had one, none of the Democratic cats would have followed it. 

All this should change in 2016 when Democrats will have a national Presidential candidate and, hopefully, will present a more disciplined message. 

2. If you’re a sheep, it doesn’t matter whom your candidate is. If you’re a cat, it does matter. Reviewing the list of 2014 Democratic candidates for the 14 contested Senate seats, the Dems lost where they fielded weak candidates; for example, Bruce Braley in Iowa and Allison Grimes in Kentucky. (Criminy! Grimes wouldn’t admit she had voted for Obama!) 

The most expensive House race in the country happened in California Congressional District 7, where incumbent Democrat Ami Bera beat millionaire Republican sheep Doug Ose. Even though Ose wrote personal checks to cover his campaign expenses, Bera won because he was a better candidate. 

In 2016, Democrats need to do a better job of vetting their candidates. 

3. Sheep need handlers. Republicans don’t trust their candidates to speak extemporaneously and, therefore, assign them handlers who keep them on a tight leash. In 2000, that meant that Karl Rove had George W. Bush give the same simple speech over and over and wouldn’t let him speak off the cuff. In 2014 that meant that Republican Iowa Senate candidate Joni Ernst – who’s as loony as Tea Party favorite Michele Bachmann – wouldn’t talk to the Iowa Press. 

The problem with the Democratic stance – that their candidates don’t need handlers – is that it assumes Democratic politicians have common sense. Unfortunately, sometimes they don’t. In 2014 this meant that Democratic Iowa Senate Candidate Bruce Braley shot himself in the foot by derogatorily referring to incumbent Iowa Senator Chuck Grassley as “a farmer from Iowa, who never went to law school…” 

Again, in 2016, Dems need to run better candidates. 

4. If you’re a cat, you can’t afford to run away from the President. Some Democratic candidates played into the hands of their Republican opponents by refusing to acknowledge President Obama. For example, Allison Grimes in Kentucky and Mark Udall in Colorado – in July, Udall skipped a Denver fundraiser for his campaign that featured Obama. 

This tactic doesn’t work for Democratic cats. After all, there are millions of Democrats (and Independents) who voted for Obama – many of whom still like him. 

In 2016, there needs to be an orderly transition from the Obama Administration to the (probably) Clinton Administration and Obama needs to be treated with respect. 

5. It’s the message, stupid! In the aftermath of the election, Former Democratic National Committee chairman, Howard Dean, observed, “You’ve got to stand for something if you want to win.” 

The key element in the campaigns of unsuccessful Democratic candidates was their lack of message focus. They seemed satisfied to run away from President Obama and paint their opponent as “too extreme for _______.” In most cases, Republicans wore “too extreme for ____” as a badge of honor; it gave them “street cred” with their Tea Party base. 

More to the point, attacking their Republican opponent didn’t get Democrats off the hook for providing a positive message. That was Colorado Senator Mark Udall’s big problem; his central message was slamming his opponent. Senator Al Franken won because he focused on jobs and inequality: “fighting for good jobs” and “we all do better when we all do better.” 

In 2016, Democrats need to follow the leader of Senator Elizabeth Warren who acknowledges that while the economy has grown, “the system is rigged” and, therefore, the plight of the middle class hasn’t improved. Democrats have to identify as the Party that is fighting for real change and defending the middle class. 

This Senior Power column (#177) is mostly about hospice. In July 2010 my column (#20) was about Death Hospice Palliative; it is accessible via the Planet’s online archive. That was then. This is now.

Hospice is a care philosophy based on belief that every person with a life-limiting terminal illness, regardless of age, is entitled to be as free of pain and symptoms as long as possible.

Some folks, including “professionals,” assume that hospice provides assisted suicide. It is currently possible to obtain physician-assisted suicide, albeit not easily, in three states. Popular literature conveys two pictures of hospice-- an at-home service and a building/program elsewhere. It can be confusing. 

Hospice in the United States has grown from a volunteer-led, not for-profit movement to improve care for people dying alone, isolated or in hospitals, to a significant part of the health care system. Most hospice care is now delivered at home. Hospice care is also available to people in home-like hospice residences, nursing homes, assisted living facilities, veterans' facilities, hospitals, and prisons.  

People in hospice are less likely to die in a hospital or nursing home and less likely to get costly and intensive care than are terminally ill patients who don’t opt for hospice care, according to a new study of older Americans with cancer. Hospice patients endured fewer invasive procedures and fewer hospital stays at the end of their lives.  

Some services have always been available from visiting-nurse and home-care agencies, clergy, church-visitation committees, and other local sources. A hospice program can coordinate their services. Not all communities have hospice agencies. “Medicare & You 2015” is the official U.S. government Medicare handbook. Hospice is a Part A-covered service. “Covered” is a misnomer in this context, however. Hospice care is described on page 37. It reads, in part, “To quality for hospice care, a hospice doctor and your doctor (if you have one) must certify that you’re terminally ill, meaning you have a life expectancy of 6 months or less. If you’re already getting hospice care, a hospice doctor or nurse practitioner will need to see you about 6 months after your hospice care started to certify that you’re still terminally ill. … A Medicare-approved hospice usually gives [sic] hospice care in your home or other facility where you live, like a nursing home…” Medicare began covering hospice in 1983 and now pays the bills of 87% of patients in hospice care. It has transformed a grassroots cause into an industry. 

There are several types of hospice. Smith and Himmel identify: concierge, faith-based, home care, for-profit, green hospice, nonprofit, pediatric, in prisons, and even pet hospice. “There’s a quiet revolution happening in the way we die. Almost half of all Americans now die in hospice care, often at home, and a vast industry has sprung up to meet the growing demand. …hospice has become a $14-billion a year business and arguably the most successful segment of health care in America.”  

For patients receiving institutionalized medical care, the federal Patient Self-Determination Act (PSDA) requires that hospitals give registering patients information regarding their right to accept or decline any kind of medical treatment, including life support. (I received no such information the last time I registered at a local hospital.) A patient can elect to wear a band which directs staff not to resuscitate. “DNR” should appear in her chart; presumably he would be a patient in a secular hospital.  

Information about the National Hospice and Palliative Care Organization, the National Association for Home Care and Hospice, the Hospice Association of America and other organizations is accessible by Internet.  

“Death hath so many doors to let out life.” Beaumont & Fletcher.  

Hospice services and palliative care programs share similar goals of providing symptom relief and pain management. Non-hospice palliative care is appropriate for anyone with a serious, complex illness. In the United States, a distinction is made between general palliative care and hospice care that delivers palliative care to those at the end of life; the two aspects of care share a similar philosophy but differ in their payment systems and location of services. 

Palliative care is any form of medical care or treatment that concentrates on reducing the severity of disease symptoms. The goal is to prevent and relieve suffering and to improve quality of life for people facing serious, complex illness. The term generally refers to any care that alleviates symptoms, whether or not there is hope of a cure by other means. Palliative treatments may also be used to alleviate the side effects of curative treatments, such as nausea associated with chemotherapy. 

The role of the palliative care physician at the University of Washington Medical Center, Seattle, is to comfort patients instead of cure them, to help them cope with their illnesses rather than to treat them. When a patient is in intensive care, the palliative care doctor stands beside the patient’s husband and children as the family prays for recovery. They talk extensively about what the family wanted to do if the patient took a turn for the worse. Personally, I am offended by these assumptions that every patient has a family and that prayer is part of their lives. 

When states are ranked by the percentage of hospitals providing palliative care, California is not among the top ten. Hospitals around the country are increasingly starting palliative care programs, designed to relieve seriously ill patients’ pain, stress and symptoms regardless of how long they have to live. While some patients are close to death, others are still receiving treatment to extend their days. And as they do, ‘tis said that the palliative care team, including doctors, social workers, nurses and chaplains, tries to improve their quality of life and help patients with things not always addressed by medical doctors. They help manage symptoms such as nausea, difficulty sleeping and fatigue, and they coordinate with the doctors providing treatment.  

More than two-thirds of hospitals with more than 50 beds offer palliative care, up from 25% in 2000, according to the Center to Advance Palliative Care at Mount Sinai School of Medicine The field is recognized as a sub-specialty, and there are fellowships, journals and research centers devoted to the topic. The increase in popularity is in part due to the growing number of people with chronic illness who may not be ready for hospice. Medicare pays for hospice benefits only if patients have six months or less to live and agree to forgo treatment that prolongs life. But some doctors are resistant to palliative care because they believe it pushes patients away from medical treatment that could help them fight their illnesses. Even the idea of patients planning ahead and making decisions about their care has caused controversy. 

A provision that would have paid doctors for having discussions about living wills with their patients was taken out of the Affordable Care Act after conservatives raised concerns over “death panels.” 

“Death is not the worst evil, but rather when we wish to die and cannot,” Sophocles (c. 496 B.C.–406 B.C.) 

Although the concept of palliative care is not new, most physicians have traditionally concentrated on trying to cure patients. They view treatments for the alleviation of symptoms as hazardous and inviting addiction and other unwanted side effects. 

There can be a relationship between assisted suicide and hospice. The modern concept of hospice includes palliative care for the incurably ill given in such institutions as hospitals or nursing homes, but also care provided to those who want to die in their own homes. It began to emerge in the 17th century, but many of the foundational principles by which modern hospice services operate were pioneered in the 1950s by Dame Cicely Saunders. Although the movement has met with some resistance, hospice has rapidly expanded throughout the United Kingdom and the United States.  

The October 19, 2014 60 Minutes TV program featured a segment about Barbara Mancini. Her father was receiving at home hospice care. The hospice nurse contacted the police, leading to Mancini’s arrest. Barbara Mancini went from being a daughter and a registered nurse to being an advocate for death-with-dignity legislation. With Compassion & Choices' help, she got the unjust charge of "assisted suicide" dismissed.  

Suicide tourism is associated with the pro-euthanasia movement which organizes trips for potential suicide candidates in the few places where euthanasia is tolerated, encouraging decriminalization of the practice in many parts of the world. It is important because it shows clearly that hospice, whether in one’s home or a separate facility, usually does not suffice for the patient with an incurable deteriorating illness and or extreme pain. This is well demonstrated in PBS remarkable Frontline series’ “Suicide Tourist” aired in March 2010.  

The booming industry  

The hospice industry has evolved from a movement of nonprofit organizations into a significant piece of the health-care industry that gets most of its revenue from Medicare. 

Beginning in May 2014, the Washington Post published The Business of Dying, a series about hospice. Peter Whoriskey is a staff writer for the Washington Post newspaper, handling investigations of financial and economic topics. Go to your Internet and read this reportage. (Note: The Business of Dying is also the title of a 2002 British novel by Simon Kernick.)  

Under new legislation addressing concerns about substandard operators in this booming industry, hospice agencies must subject themselves to government inspection at least once every three years. The bill requires closer scrutiny of hospices at which a large percentage of patients live longer than six months, a sign that a hospice may be intentionally enrolling people who are more profitable than patients closer to death. But Medicare statistics analyzed by the Washington Post indicate that hospices may be stinting on patient care in order to pad profits, e.g. 18% did not provide a single patient with “crisis care” during 2012. The legislation addresses two problems in the industry: (1) Infrequency of inspections, allowing substandard operators to stay in business; inspections have been held about once every 6+ years. (2) Hospices that appear to be enrolling patients even though they are not near death, patients generally easier to care for and are more profitable.  

Hospice and Latinos and Latinas 

The Center for Public Affairs Research has released results of a survey about Hispanics' experiences with long-term care in the United States. Hispanics are more likely than non-Hispanics to foresee needing long-term care. They report feeling less prepared for that care, more concerned about the financial consequences.  

A recommendation for hospice can be scary and overwhelming, say end-of-life experts. Lack of information has led many people to think of hospice as a place where people go to die, which leads to patients not receiving the end-of-life care and services they deserve. It is a problem acute among Latinos who, according to a 2012 California State Hospice Data Report, are less likely than other ethnic groups to discuss end of life issues. Only 4 % of terminally ill Latinos over age 65 die while under hospice care. A 2011 California HealthCare Foundation study on attitudes and experiences related to death and dying reported that 42% percent of California residents surveyed said they had discussed end of life wishes with their loved ones, while only 31% of Latinos surveyed had done so.

Daniel Lugo III was 44-years-old when he was diagnosed in 2011 with stage-four stomach cancer. His doctors gave him a year or two to live and prescribed an aggressive regime of chemotherapy, b by 2014 the cancer had spread to his brain and lungs. His weight loss was dramatic, and an esophageal stent implanted to improve his breathing and swallowing seemed to make him weaker. Then he had a seizure. The East Los Angeles family knew it was time for the husband and father of two to go into hospice, the next stage of his palliative care.  

Daniel Lugo wanted to know everything and to make sure his family was prepared for whatever would come, including his death. The doctor explained that hospice care is recommended when there is nothing more doctors can do medically to cure a patient. He said the focus of his care would turn to ensuring Lugo was comfortable, and that a team of nurses, doctors, social workers and health aides would be on call 24-hours a day to help manage his pain and other needs. Daniel Lugo prepared for his death by setting up a living will, ensuring his pension would help support his family, and buying his gravesite. 

USC Gerontology Professor Susan Enguidanos says misconceptions and lack of knowledge are barriers when it comes to getting people to consider hospice. “For Latinos, access is also hampered by citizenship and eligibility for Medicare or Medicaid.” Most hospice patients have six months or less to live, but they could live longer or die sooner. Daniel Lugo died on April 17, 2014, three weeks after entering hospice. He was 47.  

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LOCAL NEWS 

The mission of Berkeley’s Commission on Aging is to “enhance the quality of life for people 55 years and older in the Berkeley Community, to increase public awareness of their contributions and needs by actively promoting their health, safety, independence and participation in our community.” 

The November 2014 Nugget issue carried a back-page announcement of a Berkeley COA Special Meeting (November 9, at the South branch Public Library): Aging in a Changing Berkeley: How can we prepare to support healthy and engaged aging? “The Commission on Aging is seeking broad community input on issues of health, safety, housing, transportation, communication, economic opportunity, ongoing education and community involvement.” 

The Commission’s website declared that the COA seeks to focus on the effects of these issues on our rapidly growing older population. The Commission was requesting public comment to address these questions: 

a. How can we prepare to support healthy engaged aging in a changing Berkeley? 

b. How can the City government and citizens work together to help promote the vibrancy and health of our elder community? 

c. What is Berkeley doing right? 

d. Where is there room for improvements? 

e. What new possibilities are on the horizon? 

Perhaps you were unaware of this special meeting or unable to attend or have lost confidence in Berkeley’s boards and commissions. If you would nevertheless like to share your thoughts and ideas on these questions, email them to Senior Power, with permission to print! The next COA regular meeting won’t be until Wednesday, January 7, 2015. I understand that at least 4 speaker cards expressed concern about housing problems. Health and transportation are also big areas. Death and dying and end-of- life concerns like hospice deserve consideration.  

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CALIFORNIA NEWS 

There are 4.27 million Californians age 65+. By 2020, there will be 6.05 million. Caring for old and infirm people is a growth industry, especially in California, which has one of the highest percentages of for-profit nursing homes among the states. 

California has more than its share of laws governing its 1,260 nursing homes and 1,400 other facilities that provide care for 300,000 individuals.  

People who enforce the rules fail on the most basic level – helping people understand which chains operate safe and humane facilities, and which are unacceptable. Regulators do not seem to know who owns many nursing homes, or if they do, they fail to make it easy for people to find well-run facilities. 

The Sacramento Bee newspaper’s Lundstrom and Reese spent months poring over public information to construct a database showing nursing home ownership. Nine of California’s 10 largest chains fell below state averages in staffing measures such as turnover in 2012, the last year for which data are complete. Too many profit-seeking operators cut costs, and vulnerable people suffer. 

Nursing homes inspectors are overworked, as a recent California State Auditor report suggests. The Department of Public Health had 10,000 open complaints against various facilities. 

The citation system needs help. Inspectors traditionally homed in on specific facilities. They should focus on problem chains and frequently inspect chains that have a history of violations. 

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I referred at the top to the possibility of confusion around “hospice.” Reviewers and reporters refer variously to the ambience of HBO’s Getting On as a nursing home, geriatric ward, extended care unit, and geriatric extended care wing of a down-at-the-heels hospital. Season two finds Dr. James on a research binge while promoting the ward’s hospice program to bring in extra cash. 

At the Billy Barnes (a fun title-choice) Extended Care Unit of Mt. Palms Hospital in Long Beach, California, the staff attends to the needs of female patients who are often “getting on” in years, while dealing with the challenges of a health-care bureaucracy in need of overhaul. The ward's patients constitute a collection of fascinating older women who populate the background of every scene. YouTube provides a clip. 

Getting On was developed for U.S. television from the British comedy of the same name. Fifty-nine year old actor Laurie Metcalf plays Doctor Jenna James, director of medicine at the fictional extended care unit, which means geriatric ward, which means... The original series aired in Britain between 2009 and 2012. HBO's U.S. adaptation is scheduled for 6 episodes this season; it premiered on November 9.  

Meditation allows me to have more inner peace in spite of troublesome thoughts that may occur and in spite of the difficult circumstances that I sometimes experience. It causes me to seek relief through mental exercises and not through the escapism of alcohol or illicit drugs. Meditation gives me the hope that I can feel better when suffering. Meditation allows me to fall right to sleep at night.  

Beginning in 1983, I pioneered my own system of meditative techniques. However, these methods differ from those that are widely taught, and would not be practicable by most people with or without a psychiatric illness.  

Nonetheless, most individuals can discover some type of mindfulness exercise that works for them. This can begin with reading books about meditation. (I would recommend any book authored either by Thich Nhat Hanh or by The Dalai Lama. There are other good authors as well, but I do not have space to list them here.)  

When you are in a challenging or difficult situation, one in which you do not completely control what happens, it is helpful to put your mind at ease and to not generate so much worry. Meditation allows me not to be as worried so much about the outcome of situations. Meditation allows me to behave in a more disciplined, more organized, and more "appropriate" manner compared to how I would be without meditation.  

I often have the intellectual awareness that my worries are unnecessary and unrealistic. Converting this awareness into actually not being worried is the challenging part. When I have worry and yet realize that it does not point to a genuine threat, and when I pinpoint the worry and understand what it is about, it can prevent me from taking action on this illusion. Preventing myself from acting on a false worry is a good thing.  

Although a natural human instinct, worry is usually counterproductive for your survival. Meditation, when practiced over time and with great effort as well as skill, is all about not being bothered, worried, angry or upset in situations in which most people would be upset and would be reacting.  

Part of the idea behind meditation is that your emotions come from you. Other people do not actually "make you mad" or "make you upset." These are emotions that are created by the software in your head, and you are free to change that software.  

Meditation does not cure mental illness. However, it can help you deal with the challenges that life gives you as a person living with mental illness.  

If a mental health consumer is too impaired to practice meditation, it doesn't stop family members who must live with and take care of that mental health consumer from undertaking practices of mindfulness. Meditation can increase one's level of patience. And this doesn't have to entail walking on eggshells.  

Meditation may bring up suppressed or unrecognized emotions, and these emotions could be difficult to deal with. Thus, it is important to be stabilized first. Meditation can allow someone to see things with more accuracy. This can allow coming out of denial concerning facts that are not idyllic. This could either be overwhelming or it could facilitate a better outcome.

It is now old news that San Francisco’s proposed Soda Tax (Proposition E) did not pass and Berkeley’s (Measure D) did. Proposition E would have placed a two-cent per ounce tax on sugar-sweetened beverages while Berkeley’s Measure D will now place a one-cent per ounce tax. 

Proposition E required a two-thirds majority to pass because the tax revenue would have gone into a special fund for recreation and nutrition programs in schools and parks. Proposition E received 55 percent of the vote, less than the two-thirds requirement for passage. 

Berkeley’s Measure D required only a majority to pass because the tax funds will go into the general fund. Measure D passed easily with 75 percent of the vote. 

Why the interest in a soda tax? Research has shown that reducing sugar-sweetened beverage consumption would reduce the risk of obesity, type 2 diabetes, heart disease and other chronic health problems. 

What is puzzling is why the authors of Proposition E chose to have the tax proceeds go to a special fund rather than to the general fund, thus requiring a two-thirds majority to pass. 

According to San Francisco Supervisor Scott Wiener, who spearheaded the legislation, “Had we gone with a general tax, Prop E would have lost badly. We would have been lucky to get more than 40% of the vote. San Francisco isn’t Berkeley. For many people, what moved them from skepticism to yes were the guaranteed and important uses.” 

I am not sure I agree with Supervisor Wiener. Surely, emphasizing the consequences of sugar-sweetened beverages resonated with voters as much as where the tax funds would have gone. 

The Proposition E authors knew or should have known that the American Beverage Industry (ABI) would spend heavily to defeat the measure. In fact, the ABI spent more than $10 million to defeat Proposition E. In retrospect, the authors of Proposition E misread the voting public as to whether they would support a tax for general purposes which would require only a simple majority for passage. 

The bottom line: Berkeley now has an anti-obesity soda tax and San Francisco does not. 

Perhaps my greatest experience in a lifetime of opera-going was hearing Luciano Pavarotti sing Rodolfo and Mirella Freni sing Mimi in 1967 in their first ever appearances in San Francisco. As I recall, Pavarotti had only sung once before in the USA, in Houston. The impression made on me by Pavarotti and Freni in these roles was mind-blowing. Later, when these two great singers returned to San Francisco in 1988 to sing the same two roles in La Bohème, I took my 15-year-old daughter to hear them, and she too was blown away. Although I have continued to love La Bohème, –and who doesn’t? – nothing has ever come close to eliciting in me the spine-tingling shivers I experienced hearing Pavarotti and Freni as Rodolfo and Mimi.  

That said, San Francisco Opera’s new production of La Bohème, which opened Friday evening, November 14, offers alternating casts that provide glimpses aplenty of promising vocalism. As Rodolfo, American tenor Michael Fabiano was outstanding on opening night. Fabiano has sung here in 2011 as Gennaro in Donizetti’s Lucrezia Borgia, a role in which he made an auspicious company debut. Now, three years later, after touring many of the world’s leading opera houses, Fabiano has matured into a consummate vocalist, with a full-throated voice that is solid throughout the entire register. His ringing high notes are produced seemingly effortlessly, and he has both plenty of power and a fine legato. Fabiano’s “che gelida manina” and “O soave fanciulla” in Act I were exquisitely sung and full of ardor. 

On opening night, Mimi was sung by Greek soprano Alexia Voulgaridou in her local debut. She too has sung in most of the top opera houses, and she made a fine debut here as Mimi. If Alexia Voulgaridou may have been a bit nervous in Act I and insecure in her breath control in “Mi chiamano Mimi,” she more than made up for it in Acts II, III and IV. Her voice has a luscious quality that grows on you; and she is a fine actress, making you believe in her as the tubercular Mimi who finds true love with Rodolfo, then loses him, and finds him once again only to die in his arms in one of opera’s most moving endings. Voulgaridou was particularly effective in her wintry Act III duets, first with Marcello, then with Rodolfo, with whom she almost breaks up before the lovers reconcile and pledge to stay together until the next spring flowers bloom. 

As the painter Marcello, Russian baritone Alexey Markov made a fine company debut in a role he has sung at the Met; and he was admirably paired with soprano Nadine Sierra as his beloved Musetta. An alumna of the 2010 Merola Opera Program and a former Adler Fellow with San Francisco Opera, Nadine Sierra is an up-and-coming soprano with a beautiful voice who will return here to sing Countess Almaviva in next summer’s Le Nozze di Figaro. As Musetta, Sierra hammed it up with tasteful discretion, eschewing the worst over-the-top camping often indulged in by other singers of this role. Vocally, Sierra delivered her Act II waltz aria, Quando m’en vo,” without flourishes and ornamentations, relying solely on her exquisite voice and consummate musicianship. 

Rounding out the bohemians were baritone Hadleigh Adams as the musician Schaunard and bass-baritone Christian Van Horn as the philosopher Colline. Both singers were excellent; and Van Horn especially stood out in singing his famous farewell to his beloved old worn overcoat. Veteran bass-baritone Dale Travis was memorable as the landlord Benoit, and he doubled as Musetta’s elderly escort in Act II’s scene at Café Momus. Giuseppe Finzi was the conductor; and he was guilty of maddeningly slow tempos throughout. Finzi’s laggardly conducting was the only real drawback in the opening night performance. Sets and costumes were designed by Tony-award nominee David Farley; and the Parisian garret of the four young bohemians was a bit fussy and confusing. Were those paintings by Marcello hanging high on the walls or windows revealing Parisian rooftops? Or some of each? Farley’s Act II Latin Quarter set lacked depth and will hardly make us forget Franco Zeffirelli’s memorable Café Momus stage-set. The Tony award-winning stage director was Canadian John Caird, who did a fine job of keeping the action moving, and he was aided by the Lighting Designer Michael James Clark. The San Francisco Opera Chorus performed beautifully under the leadership of Chorus Director Ian Robertson. 

La Bohème will continue, with alternating casts, through December 7. The second cast features Leah Crocetto as Mimi, Italian tenor Giorgio Berrugi as Rodolfo, Ellie Dehn as Musetta, and Brian Mulligan as Marcello. All other singers remain the same as in the first cast. 

Under the auspices of Cal Performances, Zellerbach Hall hosted a much ballyhooed mixed-media production of English composer Benjamin Britten’s 1964 work Curlew River: A Parable for Church Performance. Featuring noted British tenor Ian Bostridge, Curlew River was given two performances – Friday and Saturday, November 14-15. This work was initially inspired by Britten’s 1956 trip to Japan, where he eagerly steeped himself in traditional Japanese culture. With his lifelong partner Peter Pears, Britten attended two performances in Japan of the 15^th century noh drama Sumidagawa, which tells the tale of a woman driven mad by the kidnapping of her young son, whom she seeks endlessly as she wanders the countryside. Britten was particularly struck by the chanting and austere instrumentation used in this noh drama. Once back in England Britten began to think of setting this story to music that would combine Japanese elements and the style of European medieval mystery plays.  

Britten shared his excitement with poet William Plomer, who, two years later, prepared a first draft of the libretto that eventually became Curlew River.  

Plomer’s first draft was entitled Sumida River, and it retained all the Japanese place names of the original noh drama. However, Britten and Pears realized the danger of making a pastiche of a noh play, so they worked together with Plomer to change the locale to England’s East Anglia and to introduce the notion of a medieval Christian mystery play. Sumida River became Curlew River, and the finished work became a parable of redemption through faith. 

Tenor Ian Bostridge, a major interpreter of Britten’s operas, had never per-formed the role of the Madwoman in Curlew River before this production, which premiered in 2013 at London’s Barbican Centre. But Bostridge finds this work as operatic as anything Britten produced. Bostridge also finds that Curlew River is eminently suited to innovative stagings such as this multi-media production directed by Netia Jones. As the work begins, monks appear as shadowy figures against a triangular shaft of light at the rear of the stage. As the black-robed monks form a procession and shuffle forward, singing in medieval plain chant, video projections of flying gulls (curlews) appear on the screen of light behind them. Throughout Curlew River, images are projected – water, a boat, more gulls, etc.  

Curlew River is austerely scored for seven instruments –flute, viola, harp, horn, double bass, percussion, and chamber organ (played by conductor Martin Fitzpatrick). In this production the orchestra is composed of the Britten Sinfonia, and the chorus of monks is sung by the Britten Sinfonia Voices. Among the singers, the first to step forward is the Abbot, sung by baritone Jeremy White, who addresses the audience/congregation and invites them to witness a mystery play of God’s grace. Next to step forward is the Ferryman, sung by bass-baritone Mark Stone, who sings of his work ferrying people across the Curlew River. Today, he says, is a special day, for many people are traveling to a grave that has become a kind of shrine. Suddenly, offstage, a voice is heard. A traveler, sung by bass Neal Davies, says it is the voice of the Madwoman, sung by tenor Ian Bostridge. She scorns those who mock her for her seemingly crazy wanderings.  

This much of the plot I gleaned from a quick perusal of the program notes 

prior to the show. I must say, however, that the lack of supertitles made it extremely difficult to follow the development of the Madwoman’s journey. Although Curlew River is sung in English, very little of the text came across. With the house lights dimmed, making it impossible to read the libretto, the audience was literally left in the dark regarding what words were sung. The medieval-style monophonic chanting had a mind-numbing effect. I saw several audience members nodding off. Those of us who were able to set aside any effort to understand the words and simply enjoy the beautiful singing, found ourselves caught up in an almost hypnotic spell cast by this austere music. 

Ian Bostridge was superb as the Madwoman. Narrow-shouldered and slight of build, Bostridge looked the part of a gaunt, grief-stricken woman desperately seeking her lost child; and Bostridge’s high tenor and frequent use of falsetto were beautifully effective in conveying the Madwoman’s emotional plight. In the end, a vision of her dead son appears to her from the grave, at first a shadowy figure against the white screen. Then the son, a boy soprano sung by David Schneidinger, steps forward and assures his mother they will meet one day in heaven. She achieves a sense of closure and regains her sanity. Then the Abbott claims a miracle of God’s grace has been witnessed. This Christian overlay seems artificially imposed on Curlew River, and one may object to this Christian appropriation of a story firmly rooted in Japanese Buddhist culture. One may also bridle at the Abbott’s obtrusive preachifying, which seeks to impose a Christian interpretation on the Madwoman’s sense of closure. Yet I suppose if one sets aside its noh origins, Curlew River succeeds in approximating something of the medieval Christian mystery play. In the end, Curlew River sits somewhat awkwardly astride two vastly different cultures, paying homage to each of them.

The Berkeley Architectural Heritage Association (BAHA) will hold its 40th Anniversary Celebration on Sunday, 23 November 2014, from 2:00 to 4:00 pm.

Join us as we mark 40 years of preservation advocacy, education, and activism.

We welcome the entire community to this free event, which also celebrates the Landmarks Preservation Ordinance and the many struggles to preserve the heritage and texture of Berkeley. 

BAHA founders and leaders speaking will include Carl Bunch, Susan Dinkelspiel Cerny, Austene Hall, Trish Hawthorne, Stephanie Manning, and Daniella Thompson. 

We will honor the late Sara Holmes Boutelle, author of the groundbreaking volume Julia Morgan, Architect. Neale McGoldrick, Ms. Boutelle’s research associate, will speak, as will members of her family. 

A reception will follow in the Fireside Room. Reserve your seat[s] by e-mail baha@berkeleyheritage.com, or call (510) 841-2242. 

Sunday, 23 November 2014 

2 pm – 4 pm  

First Church of Christ, Scientist
2619 Dwight Way, Berkeley 

Free Admission 

See the BAHA events calendar for program details: http://berkeleyheritage.com/calendar.html 

Contact: baha@berkeleyheritage.com

When Abraham Lincoln finally succumbed to John Wilkes Booth’s bullet after an all-night struggle, Secretary of War Edwin Stanton is supposed to have intoned over the President’s body “now he belongs to the ages.” While Stanton probably did say—or wanted to say— something like that, the actual quote itself was most likely polished up and prettified sometime afterwards for posterity’s sake, either by Stanton himself or someone who was standing nearby. That is how reality so often morphs into myth. 

As it is with individuals, so it is with eras and Movements. 

Those who lived through a Movement either succumb to these myths and repeat them as remembered fact or fight regularly to remember the real and tell the stories as they actually happened. 

And for those who were born afterwards? We look at these past eras as if through a locked window into a room we can never enter and, therefore, can never truly experience, and struggle to make sense of what will always be incomplete and just out of our reach. 

Those who try to dramatize the revolutionary ten year period between the mid-1960’s and the mid-70’s—an era that saw the rise and then demise of both the Black Panther Party and its Puerto Rican counterpart, the Young Lords—too often fall short because they speak from either one side or the other in this generational divide—either those who lived through it or those who came later—and therefore fail to speak relevance across the gap. 

By contrast, the writers, producers, and actors of Berkeley Rep’s current musical play Party People make that generational contradiction the central theme of their work. That—along with the cleverness of the creation of this piece, the competence of the actors in capturing the contradictions of those times and these, and the brilliance of the Berkeley Rep staging—make Party People one of the freshest, most original, most insightful, and most honest looks at those organizations and that era that we may have yet seen. 

The setup for Party People is simple. Malik, the son of a long-term incarcerated Black Panther (Berkeley Rep veteran Christopher Livingston), and Jimmy, the nephew of a Young Lord (Party People co-creator William Ruiz) are putting on a multi-platform visual art show to both explain and honor the memory and legacy of the two organizations. They invite former members of the two parties to participate, and the decisions of those Movement veterans as to how—and even whether—to participate plays out around a reliving of the organizational and personal struggles that took place when the organizations and those individuals were young and challenging the powers of this nation. 

Malik has videotaped interviews with several of the Panther or Young Lord veterans, and he continues to do so during the course of the play. Those interviews are replicated on multiple flatscreen plasma screens set up at various points across the stage scenery, often simultaneously as they are being videotaped both by Malik’s hand-held camera and from cameras mounted in various sections of the auditorium. There is what seems, at first, to be a ragged pulling back of the performance when Malik stops the play to give directions to the camerapersons, but we soon learn that this is actually part of the performance itself, a play-within-a-performance. Meanwhile, audience members are told that if they have to leave their seats for some reason while the performance is going on, they can watch it broadcast in the Berkeley Rep bar nearby. By the time cast members go into the stands and begin interacting with audience members, one is tempted to pull out your smartphone to see if the Berkeley Rep performance itself is part of some show being sent out to a larger internet audience, with the audience as simply a larger part of the play. 

There are several memorable scenes and songs. But by far, the highlight of the production is the backstory moment in which a penitentiary prisoner Solias—played by Bay Area veteran actor Reggie D. White—is recruited by the FBI to infiltrate the Panther Party and disrupt its activities. Solias—the government-paid agent—convinces Party members that it is loyal Party member Omar—played by Party People co-creator Steven Sapp—a scenario played out many times over in Panther and Young Lord history. Jumping back to the present, Sapp’s volcanic anger at being reunited with people who first suspected and then tortured him—and the surviving Party members’ anguish at those actions their attempts to justify and blame it on “the times”—leads directly into the best of the musical’s many dance-and-song numbers, a driving, rhythmic, Afrocentric stomp-and-chant by the men alone. 

There are a few flaws, of course. Solias’ lament-song at seeing the results of his betrayal is a little too reminiscent of Judas’ death-scene in Jesus Christ, Superstar, and in the brief periods when the cast-members try to rattle off Panther or Young Lord history and ideology, its mechanical, mindless, rapid-fire rote sounds far too much like, well, the mechanical, mindless, rapid-fire rote that many Panther and Young Lord leaders and party members often used, back in the day. If that’s the point the playwrights and director were trying to make, it was lost on those who weren’t around in the days when Panthers made their money by selling Mao’s Little Red Books to UC Berkeley students at the foot of Sather Gate and Sproull Hall. Fortunately, those flaws are few and far between, as Party People stresses originality of vision and staging and allows us to live out the history of its protagonists rather than simply telling us about that history. 

Socially-conscious musicals such as Les Miserábles, Porgy And Bess, or West Side Story seek to create memorable moments from historical eras. The snapshots are memorable, true, but what we remember is actually only the depictions themselves, not the periods they purport to depict. Set in the front row of a Les Miz performance today, actual French revolutionists, instead of seeing the play as a tribute to their struggle, would probably open up with musket fire on the cast and line up for the guillotine those who managed to survive. 

Rather than attempting to capture the era of the Panthers and Young Lords, Party People begins and ends with the assumption that while such things are uncapturable, it is the struggle of trying to recreate them that is most important in understanding them and honoring their legacy. That process is never-ending, and in that lies the genius of the Party People experience. 

Party People has been held over through at least November 30^th past its original end date of November 16^th. One can easily understand why. This one is a keeper. 

Berkeley Rep Thrust Stage 

Through November 30, 2014

Shot in luminous black-and-white, the cinematography in The Better Angels pulls viewers into the boyhood world of a young Abe Lincoln, revealing the early forces—including two strong women—that forged his character. The film—by Terrence Malick's longtime protégé, A.J. Edwards‑regales the senses with haunting images of a raw, half-tamed world—in this case, rural Indiana in the year 1817—that recall the stark clarity of Civil War photographer Matthew Brady and the magnificence of landscape artist Ansel Adams. 

The images of the Natural-World-before-asphalt—dominated by tall curtains of hardwood forests, vast carpets of fallen leaves, cricket-filled thickets, ice-capped boulders and the raging Ohio River, drunk on spring melt—are quietly breathtaking. 

The Better Angels is also breathtakingly quiet. This is not a film that talks to you and tells you what to feel. Most of the words spoken in the film are taken straight from 19^th century interviews with surviving members of the Lincoln family. These recollections float through the film in the form of voice-overs. Because not many words are spoken, the few complete sentences that do appear the screenplay standout all the more. For example, this recollection of an exchange with the older Abe: "I asked him where he got so many blamed lies. He told me, 'When a story learns you a good lesson, it ain't no lie. God tells truth in parables." 

For most of the film, however, Young Abe (Kentucky-born Braydon Denney) hardly speaks a word. 

"You're like this corn," his hard-edged father (Jason Clarke) tells him. "You're all closed up. You won't break free. You won't come out. You can't stay in the ground forever, son. One has to grow. And give." 

With a father like Tom Lincoln (always ready to enforce discipline with a hickory switch), you can understand why a boy might hesitate to speak up. But it is clear from the light in young Abe's troubled, watchful eyes that he is fiercely alive and blessed with a mind that is already dealing with issues others haven't learned to ask. Abe's mother, Nancy (Brit Marling), sees what the father can't. "He asks me questions I can't answer," she says. "He's got a gift." 

The Better Angels is nearly wordless and, as a consequence, it becomes richly emotional. Without the sensory overload of typical Hollywood fare, the audience's senses come alive. Viewers become as watchful as young Abe, always alert to shifts in body language and every halfway glance in a largely nonverbal world. The experience pulls you in, dares you not to look away, allows your soul to spill into the crisp imagery of a lost landscape. The daily chores of frontier survival, the hard axe-wielding labor, the privation, all become personal and felt. This is stunning, soulful cinema that can make you gasp, leave you smiling broadly with deep amazement and, in the next minute, find yourself brushing tears from your eyes. 

The camerawork is illuminating, even when the scenes are drenched in shadows. From the glory of wild landscapes to the intimacy of family life in a log cabin lit with the nubs of candles, The Better Angels, lifts the bar on what cinema can achieve. In one early scene, a tear wells up in a woman's eye. Most directors would have allowed the tear to spill down the check. Not here. Edwards' restraint only accentuates the impact as we are left to imagine the tear's fall. This is what poetry is to vocabulary. 

In some of the most gripping close ups, the camera seems to dance about the bodies of Abe and his family. The camera becomes a close companion as Abe runs, rambles and fights his way through the seasons. In an extended scene where young Abe playfully wrestles with his siblings in a field and then has to wrestle his taunting father, the camera appears to be part of the combat, first framing the trajectories of the colliding bodies and then getting in between the slamming impact of muscles and skin. 

There's another memorable scene that may become enshrined in the annals of beloved cinematic moments. It involves a wary stroll in the woods between Abe and his new stepmother Sarah (Diane Kruger) that leads to a shared walk on a fallen tree and magically becomes the touching, elegant courtship of a mother and her stepchild. 

(I had only one problem with this beautiful film. I won't spell it out, but it has something to do with sunshine.)

"A Parable for Church Performance" ... The subtitle for Benjamin Britten's unusual musical theater piece, 'Curlew River,' is precise, yet doesn't illuminate what the spectator will see and hear. And the promotional tag, "part Noh theater and part medieval Mystery Play" can make the performance sound more a glib or academic hybrid than a moving experience ... 

But the production of Britten's sui generis musical play, directed by Netia Jones, originally for the Barbicon Centre in London, presented here by Cal Performances at Zellerbach Hall, successfully points to the two more-or-less contemporary theatrical styles from opposite ends of the world that inspired 'Curlew River,' as it elicits from out of the atmosphere created from the gestures taken from these styles an underlying artistic and very humane passion that is "the mystery" the Abbot intones at the start. 

Both Noh and Mystery Plays are rife with ceremony, preparing and presenting the ground for the revelation they intend, displaying the very borderline between ritual and theater. ("It's true theater begins in religious ritual," said that non- or irreligious dramatist Bertolt Brecht, "but at the moment it becomes theater, it is no longer religious ritual." True and untrue for both Noh and the Mystery Plays, both secular in they were not fully sacred, part of a liturgy—no matter how much they utilize elements of it—but both intended to bring out in artistry the human experience of the numinous that religion gives office to.) 

And 'Curlew River' begins with the folderol of pilgrims, clad in off-whites, grays and blacks on a dusky set shot through with "raw" white beams, giving it the sense sometimes of a Baroque tableau, preparing to board a ferry. The Ferryman and a Traveler, an Everyman sort, are introduced. 

Then from the wings, a different sort of singing is heard, a troubling, troubled sound—the Madwoman, sung and portrayed by Ian Bostridge—voice punctuated by a flute, driven mad by the kidnap of her young son, whom she waywardly searches for. 

Bostridge is remarkable in his singing and body language, angular, sometimes grotesque. His attitudes are maybe inspired by the performance of the Shite ("Shtay"), the lead actor and focal point of Noh, but look more like Gothic statuary forms, concretized ghosts of Mystery and Miracle Plays—both Noh and medieval theater and sculpture displaying asymmetric form, sometimes almost shocking in its grotesqueness, its carnality, to use a Christian term. 

And there are moments when, sitting downstage in a cross of light on the boards, Bostridge's face, illuminated by the raw white, almost pinpoint, spots, became masklike, one moment very feminine, the next, thoroughly masculine. This touched on the Noh's all-male cast of actors, who portray women—and the female roles, especially madwomen!, are the most honored—without pretense of disguise, trying to show an essence rather than realistic detail. And the effect also paralleled that of Noh masks, which, moving in the light, give a sense of changing expressions, moods ... 

Noh doesn't use much in the way of affective, mimetically emotional, psychological techniques to get across its often mysterious sense of a figure's (different than a character, a persona) dilemma, its karma—or passion, in the Christian sense. Instead, there's the artistic use of shamanic techniques, many of which were carried across Asia to Japan by Buddhist monks, who adapted them from a variety of religious practices—Hindu, Manichaean, Tibetan Bon, Central asian shamanism, Japanese Shinto—as teaching devices. Mystery Plays also drew from folk and pre-Christian religious and magical customs—as well as on the remains of the ancient wandering Mimes and their theatrical and storytelling techniques—but the action onstage was more mimetic, more emotional, as Christianity, especially in the West, gradually became a religion of the passions, the emotions, eventually giving rise to more and more psychological forms of theatrical story and action—and to opera. 

Britten's piece, not exactly opera, not oratorio, with a story from the classical canon of the Noh (''Sumidagawa") adapted to medieval Britain, the trappings of the medieval Church, a small musical ensemble partly inspired by Gagaku, Japanese classical music which decisively influential aesthetically the Noh, marshalled all these elements, these inspirations, not as academic references or for the excitement of a "fusion" effect, but to help crystallize an experience, concretize an intuition of humanity—a woman whose maternal sentiment has driven her to insanity, then to find, unexpectedly, illumination, which affects others.

The Iranian American Community of Northern California will hold a Picket-Line in Berkeley on Saturday November 22nd to oppose the horrifying human rights condition in Iran and especially the high number of public executions 

November 18 2014, The United Nations voted to condemn Iranian human rights abuses and singled it out for executing upwards of 1,000 political opponents and prisoners in the past year. Mrs. Maryam Rajavi, President-elect of the Iranian Resistance, welcomed the United Nations General Assembly Third Committee’s adoption of 61st systematic violation of human rights in the Iran. “This resolution leaves no doubt that the appalling human rights record of the clerical regime must be referred to the Security Council for the adoption of binding and punitive measures and that those responsible for 120,000 political executions should face justice,” she said. 

We call on all freedom loving people to lend us a helping hand to expose the atrocities of the Iranian regime and to support democratic change in Iran, by the people of Iran and their organized resistance movement. 

Date: Saturday November 22 

Time: 11AM to 1PM 

Place: UC Berkeley entrance - corner of Telegraph and Bancroft 

Watch ABC News coverage of our last rally:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ptBEgFVYja4&list=UUMwIRaDF2CC1AMScXqasYfQ 

Supported by: 

Northern California Society of Iranian American Professionals –  

@NCSIAP Refugee Women Outreach –  

@PRefugee - ProjectRefugeeOutreach@gmail.com