Berkeley police Thursday asked the public for help in identifying a suspect who allegedly robbed and injured an 83-year-old man for his new iPhone.

The strong-arm robbery occurred on Friday, Dec. 26 around 1 p.m., just after the victim left the Apple store at 1823 4th St. -more-

It takes community power to end the war on Black communities. Join us Tues, Feb 10th @ 5:30pm to demand Berkeley City Council take legislative action to address police brutality and militarization of the Berkeley Police Department.

We will meet at Oxford Ave and Center St. at 5:30PM.
We will march to the city council and rally for black lives.
We need the city of Berkeley to act RIGHT NOW and be in solidarity with the growing movement for Black Lives. -more-

It is vitally important for all of us to educate ourselves on the plight of the wild horse, for they are being rounded up by the thousands. Lets not have any more brutal round-ups. If after five years of giving the birth control medication PZP to wild mares and they become sterile, perhaps in some cases that may be all right. Most of we humans love and respect our wild horses and see them as iconic figures, and absolutely want no more round ups, or any part of these terrific tragedies involved. -more-

In a serious breach of established protocol, Speaker John Boehner launched a sneak attack on the White House by inviting Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to speak before a joint session of Congress. Jewish Voices for Peace vehemently denounced the planned visit stating that under his leadership, “the Israeli government has ramped up illegal settlement building, increasing the population of Jewish settlers by over 23%, made the biggest land grab in a generation, committed countless human rights abuses and killed thousands of civilians in the West Bank and Gaza, and done everything possible to maintain the status quo of Israeli occupation and domination”. -more-

We need money for affordable housing, food stamps, universal health care, education and job creation. By reducing the military budget for foreign wars and for the militarization of our police, money can be freed up for those forced into poverty and then terrorized by the police so they fear to protest their condition. -more-

Last night [Tuesday], the Berkeley City Council voted to postpone for two weeks consideration of three items introduced by Councilmember Jesse Arreguin in response to the police response during last December’s protests, despite the fact that students and members of the community had been waiting for eight hours over two separate council meetings to speak on these items. I am extremely disappointed in the Berkeley City Council for once again refusing to address police brutality. The City Council impeded students from voicing their opinions to them on this matter on multiple occasions: the Mayor unilaterally canceled the meeting following the protests; a majority of the City Council voted to delay a special meeting until January 17, ostensibly in order to allow students to speak, despite the fact that the students would not be back from Winter Break for that meeting; and, the Mayor brought up agenda items out-of-order, which further delayed consideration of these items. As a result of the City Council’s latest delay, it will now be more than two months since the Berkeley Police Department’s unwarranted use of force on December 6 before a single introduced item has been discussed, let alone voted on.

My Office supports the three items introduced by Councilmember Arreguin. The first item endorses the National Demands of Ferguson Action, such as the demilitarization of the police and eliminating the use of military technology and equipment. The second item would refer amendments to the Berkeley Police Department’s general orders on crowd control, use-of-force, and mutual aid based on common-sense changes made to the Oakland and San Francisco PD’s general orders after events such as Occupy Oakland to the City Manager and the Police Review Commission. It would also implement a temporary moratorium on the use of crowd control techniques, such as the use of rubber bullets and tear gas, until after the Police Review Commission presents amendments and conducts an independent investigation. The third item would direct the Police Review Commission to conduct an independent investigation of BPD’s response to the December protests. -more-

Economic prosperity is back, the unemployment rate has steadily gone down, millions of uninsured people now have medical insurance, the auto industry is healthy again, the stock market has hit an all time high - which in turn has improved 401(k) holdings of the middle class - gas prices keep going down, and Ebola is under control. -more-

“Concerning tobacco's harmful effects, the argument doesn't hold water that pot smoke is just as bad for your lungs as tobacco smoke. This is because marijuana can be put in olive oil, baked in brownies and so on. While the only way of getting tobacco, in a manner that "does the trick" for us, is to smoke it.” – Jack Bragen

Jack Bragen should do a little research before he writes such nonsense. Both tobacco and marijuana smoke is extremely harmful to lungs, and both substances are listed as carcinogens on the California Department of Health’s website. Both substances can also be used in non-smoke-producing ways; patches, lozenges, chewables, edibles, the list goes on. -more-

So far, the Republican-controlled 114th Congress has attacked women’s reproductive rights and savaged undocumented immigrants. Now they want to bully the Administration into attacking Iran. -more-

Almost before the votes were counted in the recent Greek elections, battle lines were being drawn all over Europe. While Alexis Tsipras, the newly elected Prime Minister from Greece’s victorious Syriza Party, was telling voters, “Greece is leaving behind catastrophic austerity, fear and autocratic government,” Jens Weidmann, president of the German Bundesbank, was warning the new government not to “make promises it cannot keep and the country cannot afford.”

On Feb. 12 those two points of view will collide when European Union (EU) heads of state gather in Brussels. Whether the storm blowing out of Southern Europe proves an irresistible force, or the European Council an immovable object, is not clear, but whatever the outcome, the continent is not likely to be the same after that meeting. -more-

The far-left anti-austerity Syriza Party has agreed to a coalition deal with the Independent Greeks giving the Syriza Party a majority and thus power in Greece.

Greece had slipped into near bankruptcy primarily because of widespread tax evasion and corruption. The "brutal austerity" imposed on Greece as a condition of $273 billion in Eurozone bailouts since 2010 has actually been working slowly but surely. The economy has been growing and unemployment is down.

On January 26, the Eurogroup began discussing an extension to Greece’s bailout -- which expires on February 28 -- but the Greek government must formally ask for an extension. However, on January 30, Greece's new Finance Minister Yanis Varoufakis said that Greece's government will not cooperate with the European Union and the International Monetary Fund mission bankrolling the country and will not seek an extension to the bailout program. This sets up a confrontation between the Eurozone and Greece. -more-

January marked the 70 anniversary of of the liberation of Auschwitz-Birkenau. We have seen newsreels of the liberation of the Nazi concentration camps at the end of WW II and a number of movies depicting the horrors of the Holocaust. However, newsreels and movies did not really prepare us for an actual visit to the site of the largest mass murder in history. As many as 1.5 million were murdered at Auschwitz, mainly Polish Jews, but also Soviet prisoners-of-war, Gypsies, Czechs, Yugoslavs, French, Austrians, and Germans. -more-

We have a gradual nationwide trend in which laws are being made to restrict or prohibit tobacco use, and other legislation is passing that makes marijuana legal and accessible. These are both addictive substances (especially considering the greatly increased potency of today's pot) and it seems paradoxical that this reversal is taking place. -more-

A Freight favorite and concertmaster of the San Francisco Opera Orchestra, Kay Stern returns to our stage with a gaggle of SFCO All-Stars in tow, and a program of string quartets guaranteed to warm your cockles and banish your blues. With Jory Fankuchen (violin), Darcy Rindt & Ben Simon (viola), and Robert Howard (cello). Classical at the Freight
Monday, February 9 @ 8pm
Freight and Salvage Coffeehouse

Mozart String Quintet in C minor, K. 406
Brahms String Quintet in G major, Op. 111

This is a ticketed event: $9 in advance/$11 at the door. SFCO members get two tickets for the price of one! Make sure to show your membership card at the door.> Click here for more information -more-

In their second of two concerts at Davies Symphony Hall on Monday evening, January 26, 2015, the Budapest Festival Orchestra, led by Music Director Iván Fischer, presented a program of music by Mozart and Mendelssohn. Leading off the program was Mozart’s overture to The Magic Flute. This familiar work combines seriousness, marked by the three-fold chords that begin the overture and are later repeated, with the giddy high spirits associated in the opera with Papageno. Con-ductor Ivan Fischer led a brisk interpretation of this overture, although to my mind he allowed too long a pause before and between the three-fold chords, especially when they reappear, only in the winds, midway through this overture. Granted, it is traditional to pause here in order to mark the beginning of the ritual ordeals of Tamino and Papageno presided over by Sarastro’s priests. However, in the overture itself these pauses are not usually so long and drawn-out as was here the case. -more-