UPDATE

Berkeley Fire continues to work a structure fire in the 2300 block of Channing Way. At this time the fire is considered multiple alarms. Residents can expect to see and smell heavy smoke in the area.

Additional Fire units from neighboring jurisdications are responding to assist. They will be stagging on Dana between Dwight and Durant.

Dana Street is closed to all traffic, pedestrian and vehicular. Please avoid the area. Channing between Telegraph and Ellsworth is closed along with Haste between Telegraph and Ellsworth. -more-

Berkeley firefighters are battling a four-alarm blaze at a church on Channing Way and Dana Street, a fire department spokeswoman said. -more-

In the summer of 1960 I took the Erie railroad from Port Jervis to Chicago, my first trip away from home alone, to attend the National High School Institute in journalism at Northwestern University in Evanston.

It was an honor to be chosen as a Medill “cherub” and even better to get a $200 scholarship that covered all costs of five weeks on campus. Since 1931, the NHSI has enrolled high school students between their junior and senior years for an intensive learning experience in several subjects; the enrichment program now costs upwards of $5,000.

The news from Charlotte

The summer was transformative. Every day, we hundred editors of high school newspapers from around the country talked about current events and learned how to write news stories using the inverted pyramid, features, and editorials. We made friends and promises, led by the editors of two segregated high schools in Charlotte, North Carolina, scene of recent unrest following the police shooting of a black man, 43 year old Keith Lamont Scott.

That shooting gave me the goose bumps. I always considered Charlotte to be a liberal university city, a shining light of racial integration and harmony, because when I was seventeen, I had witnessed an historic meeting of minds from the “Queen City” of the South. -more-

I don’t understand Robert Reich’s endorsement of Laurie Capitelli for Mayor of Berkeley. I have always had the highest respect for Robert Reich, shaken his hand, read a book or two, and read whatever he had to say in newspaper letters or articles. I don’t recall disagreeing with whatever he had to say. He is a relative newcomer in Berkeley and clearly doesn’t have the feel of the place. Laurie Capitelli, a real estate man himself, represents all that is wrong in new development in our little piece of heaven, which is being sold out to real estate developers, at a high cost to Berkeley’s citizenry. Maybe Robert Reich would tell us what thinking went into his thinking on this endorsement. I suppose politicians, like happy marriages, are alike. -more-

UPDATE:

The City of Richmond has refused to grant Wareham Development a permit to store the PCB-contaminated soil in Richmond and has ordered them to remove it. In a letter dated September 30, 2016, Wareham has committed to contact the City on Monday to “confirm exactly which day that removal will occur.”

The letter also indicates that the dumping was “approved by the Regional Water Quality Control Board.” I am looking into by what authority the Water Board approved this dumping of PCB-contaminated soil in Richmond without a permit.

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Without informing the City of Richmond and without applying for the required grading permit, Wareham Development dumped hundreds of tons of PCB-contaminated soils excavated from a site in Emeryville onto a vacant lot owned by Wareham in Point Richmond within only a few hundred feet of homes and Washington School.

The dumping appears to be a conspiracy that may involve the U.S Environmental Protection Agency, the Bay Area Water Quality Control Board, the California Department of Toxic Substance Control (DTSC) and Wareham. -more-

Today in your on-line newspaper you posted serious allegations against Wareham Development made by Mayor Tom Butt of Richmond regarding the temporary storing of soil on one of Wareham’s properties in Richmond.

Wareham Development strongly disputes Mayor Butt’s assertions that Wareham “dumped” contaminated soil in Richmond. This is a complete misrepresentation of the facts. -more-

There’s been lots of research about the disadvantages of too many stop and other traffic signs. The Netherlands and other countries have been at the forefront of getting rid of “excessive” signs. What researchers have found is that “[d]rivers will force the accelerator down ruthlessly only in situations where everything has been fully regulated. Where the situation is unclear, they're forced to drive more carefully and cautiously.”(1) ‘"When you don't exactly know who has right of way, you tend to seek eye contact with other road users,'' he said. ''You automatically reduce your speed, you have contact with other people and you take greater care."’ (2) -more-

Who is the funniest candidate for Berkeley mayor? I'm a serious student of local politics, and I think we need a rematch because even I can't tell. -more-

In that famous moment in O’Neill’s play about self-seduction and self-cockolding, Harry cries out, “What have ya done to the booze, Hickey? It’s got no kick to it.” And what have they done to our town? Where is the impressionist history that will trace our loss back to that never-never land known as berkeley (with a small b). Where is that famous artist who painted a psycho-history of machinic beasts to tell us, with his “paranoid method,” what we should have known all along, that something was being taken away. -more-

We are the pro-tenant, progressive Rent Stabilization Board slate of Christina Murphy, Alejandro Soto-Vigil, Leah Simon-Weisberg, and Igor Tregub (“CALI” for short). Our track record of success in our collective efforts to fight for Berkeley’s most vulnerable has earned us the endorsements of Senator Bernie Sanders, the Sierra Club, the Berkeley Tenants Union, theAlameda County Democratic Party, the Alameda County Labor Council, Councilmembers Jesse Arreguin, Kriss Worthington, and Max Anderson, and many others respected community leaders. -more-

To be Jewish, or even to have Jewish heritage, is for many of us to acquire a necessary sensitivity to ethnic antagonisms in connection to mass movements. The Trump campaign invites scrutiny in this regard. Exhibit A: the candidate himself famously indulges in racial and ethnic slanders. Exhibit B: the Trump candidacy is enthusiastically promoted by nazi revivalists who organize under the flags of a European "identitarian" movement that has acquired support throughout Europe and that now appears in the US at Trump rallies, on campuses, and in Sacramento stabbing queer communists. -more-

Editor's Note: The latest issue of the Pepper Spray Times is now available.

You can view it absolutely free of charge by clicking here . You can print it out to give to your friends.

Grace Underpressure has been producing it for many years now, even before the Berkeley Daily Planet started distributing it, most of the time without being paid, and now we'd like you to show your appreciation by using the button below to send her money.

This is a Very Good Deal. Go for it! -more-

Op-Ed: Laurie Capitelli is not a true progressive

Three-alarm fire damages Berkeley church -more-

There are more articles to post today, but contrary to our usual practice I'm posting this issue now because of the fire at First Congo. We have a reporter on the scene and hope to show photos soon. -more-

Whew! Even though I expected Hillary Clinton to win the first presidential debate with Donald Trump, watching it was a nerve-wracking experience. Here are my first thoughts about the debate:

1.Hillary had the best demeanor. In general, Clinton came across as composed and cheerful. Trump came across as angry and, occasionally, disdainful.

2.Trump interrupted Clinton either by talking over her or by making snide comments such as, "that's called business,by the way" -- when she noted that Trump "was one of the people who rooted for the housing crisis."

3.Although the Trump campaign has made a lot of fuss about Clinton's supposed "stamina" problem, it was Trump who wilted in the last half of the debate. -more-

It is harder than it was in the not so distant past for those with psychiatric illness to survive, live independently, and remain in a non-institutionalized situation. Various parties within the government and the business community have created rules and have created a scenario in which persons with disabilities, especially psychiatric, are being forced out. This entails submitting to institutionalization, excessive supervision, and the segregation that exists (which is partly classist segregation and partly segregation by means of keeping us sequestered by mental health treatment organizations). -more-

In the Muslim world, the tale of the inspired but tragic love of Layla and Majnun holds a place in the popular imagination similar to that held in western culture by Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet. However, the tale of Layla and Majnun, which originates way back in oral tradition in the Arabian peninsula, predates Shakespeare’s play by more than a thousand years. The ill-fated lovers Layla and Majnun have been celebrated by Turks, Arabs, Persians, Indians, Pakistanis and Afghans; but perhaps the most influential version of this story was a Persian one by Nezami Ganjawi (1140-1209 BCE). Another influential setting of this story was by Azerbaijani poet and philosopher Muhammad Fuzuli (1483-1556), whose work was later set to music by Azerbaijani composer Uzeyir Hajibeyli (1885-1948) in an opera, Leyli and Majnun, which premiered in Baku in 1908. Since then, this opera has opened every season at the Azerbaijani State Opera and Ballet Theatre; and it is a source of immense pride to all Azerbaijanis. -more-

Opens September 30 at the Shattuck Landmark

Cameraperson, filmmaker Kirsten Johnson's self-styled "memoir," is like an album of old photos (or a family member's summer vacation slideshow—anyone old enough to remember those?) but enhanced with sound and the added dimension of time.

The title, Cameraperson, is Johnson's jibe at yet another male-centric industry. All too often, "cameraman" is the title that women filmmakers are forced to bear. This film will help change that.

"The joys of being a documentary cameraperson are obvious and endless," Johnson writes, "I get to share profound intimacy with the people I film, pursue remarkable stories, be at the center of events as they unfold, travel, collaborate, and see my work engage the world."

Over the past 25 years, Johnson has racked up an impressive resume, providing cinematography for films like Michael Moore's Farhrenheit 9/11 and CItizenfour, the powerful, award-winning documentary profiling NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden.

-more-

In San Francisco Opera’s new production of Gaetano Donizetti’s Don Pasquale, which opened Wednesday, September 28, an old codger, one Don Pasquale, gets his world turned topsy-turvy when he foolishly weds, or thinks he weds, a much younger woman. However, the wedding itself is a mock ceremony designed by Don Pasquale’s physician, Dr. Malatesta, to trick Don Pasquale and demonstrate to the old codger that he is better off not getting married at his advanced age. There, in a nutshell, is the basic plot of Donizetti’s Don Pasquale, an opera buffa composed late in Donizetti’s illustrious career. -more-

The Castro Theater's celebration of Anna Magnani, the dazzling diva of Italian film, has now crossed the Bay to Berkeley's new art museum/film house. -more-