The project formerly known as Parker Place consists of two big boxes at 2598 and 2600 Shattuck Avenue, with smaller structures under construction behind them. Only 2598 Shattuck, containing 38 rental units, is complete so far. Its ads proclaim "Parker is that thrill you feel when inspiration strikes." These ads have been repeated multiple times per day on Craigslist since June, with asking rents of $4,150 for two-bedroom apartments, and similarly stratospheric rates for the smaller units.

Apartment seekers appear to be less than thrilled. At night, the building still looks spooky dark. Other than lights in the stairwells and hallways, and in the chicly-staged unit featured in the ads, I have only seen a few lights on, ever. -more-

Police are looking for a woman they say stole a Berkeley woman's identity in order to open several fraudulent lines of credit in businesses around the Bay Area, according to Berkeley police. -more-

If you are looking for a last minute holiday gift for one of Berkeley’s intelligent readers, or winter time reading for yourself, here are three suggestions. All are books published earlier this year. They are also all unconventional and extensively illustrated local histories by local authors.

Radical Booksellling: A Life of Moe Moskowitz, Doris Jo Moskowitz, 2016. $18.95.

San Francisco’s Exposition Year: the 1915 Panama Pacific International Exposition, Anthony Bruce, Trifoil Press, 2016. $39.95.

Quirky Berkeley, Tom Dalzell. Heyday Press, 2016. $15.00. -more-

I am concerned that immediately upon the launching of your proposal to deal with the critical nature of our homeless crisis, you have met resistance from that very community and perhaps, you do not understand why. I would like to give you my take on their oppositional position and a solution.

The First They Came For the Homeless camp (Tent City) has been leading the public movement to end the suffering of homelessness by their adherence to being a self-governing, clean and sober community that helps anyone in a similar condition. I have been extremely impressed with their community, by their spirit of generosity and commitment to the “other”. I have gone there several times just to visit and am almost overwhelmed by the fraternal lovingness of it.

Mike Lee and others have endured great hardship living in their camps. First, the City with its predilection to move them every time they get established and structured, is a blow from which they have had to recover eleven times. The raids by the police department, at the instruction of the City Manager’s office, have resulted in their having almost all of their possessions (tents, sleeping bags, mats, clothing, medicine, & food) removed and they have been left stranded over and over again in the cold and the rain with nothing. It has put their lives is jeopardy and has resulted in everyone at the camp getting physically weaker and sicker. True, after a week or so, many of the items are replaced through the kindness of the Berkeley citizenry, but each moment they have to endure such awful circumstances spirals them further downward. I have been out there with them when all that was left after a raid were two large tarps that they had to string up to trees to shelter their people from the rain. They were freezing, wet, unmedicated (hypertension, asthma, antibiotics, etc medicines taken.) and despondent. It is this despondency that you are now encountering in their anger and outrage. -more-

In their very first council meeting our new Mayor and City Council (With the exception of Sophie Hahn and Cheryl Davila) backtracked on just about every promise made to the people who voted for them after accepting a bizarre illegible hand scrawled set of amendments from a double talking and purposely delaying and confusing Kriss Worthington, that stripped away any protections for our most vulnerable and gave Czar status to the very person who went behind that same council's back to call out the police under false pretenses to take the blankets off of the disabled and elderly on a freezing, wet night in a pre-dawn raid. One of 12 in two months. Then they hightailed out the back way to avoid looking their constituents in the face. -more-

Berkeley's New Council Majority and the Shelter Game Carol Denney 12-14-2016 -more-

As Donald Trump's inauguration looms, there's been a lot of speculation about the nature of his relationship with Russia. Trump has frequently spoken of his admiration for the President of the Russian Federation, Vladimir Putin; Trump refers to Russia as a "partner" rather than an "adversary." Meanwhile, the CIA believes that Russian hackers helped Trump win the election. In addition, Trump nominated ExxonMobil CEO Rex Tillerson to be Secretary of State largely because of Tillerson's good relationship with Russia. What's going on? -more-

Election exit polls tell us the typical Trump voter was white (non-Hispanic), male, older, rural, and had no college degree. But that doesn't explain why they voted for Trump. There were four types of Trump voters; each having different expectations. -more-

Donald J. Trump and his family have business interests in at least 20 countries in addition to extensive hotel and real estate holdings in the United States. The full extent of his holdings is unclear as Trump has refused to release his tax returns or provide a list of his lenders. Could Trump administration actions around the world be shaded even slightly by his ties to foreign players? Would his overseas holdings be targets for terrorism? -more-

There are at least two ways that a person can dis-identify with oneself. One of the two of which I know is a symptom of mental illness that psychologists call "disassociation." This is usually due to emotional trauma. It is often triggered by something in the environment of the past or present, and the individual is effectively unplugged or disconnected from oneself and one's surroundings. Usually, someone in this state is nonfunctional (e.g., she or he would not be able to go to the store and buy a loaf of bread). Or, for some, an alternate personality takes over, in which case the individual has a "multiple personality disorder." Either way, the individual has temporarily lost his or her normal identity. -more-

Voices of Music, a Bay Area ensemble headed by Hanneke van Proosdij and David Tayler, gave a series of holiday concerts in San Francisco, Berkeley and Palo Alto featuring virtuoso concertos by Arcangelo Corelli (1653-1753), Georg Phillip Telemann (1681-1767), and Antonio Vivaldi (1678-1741). I attended their Berkeley concert at the Church of St. Mary Magdalen on Sunday evening, December 18. The concert opened with Corelli’s ever-popular Christmas concerto, the Pastorale, Opus 6, No. 8. Featured soloists in this Corelli concerto were violinists Carla Moore and Lisa Grodin, and cellist Elisabeth Reed. One of the themes used by Corelli is based on a tune traditionally played in Rome on Christmas Eve by shepherds on the Zampogna, a rustic bagpipe. -more-

Two men sit on a moonlit porch, somewhere out in the country, but God knows just where. One of the pair, we discover (after the dying strains of Hank Williams singing "Have You Ever Been Lonely?") has just traveled "across the country" by bus (again, from God knows where) to sit it (whatever "it" is) out with his old buddy who called him in the middle of the night for his company ... -more-

Indra's Net has been presenting plays about science the past few years, and their latest, coming up next week through the holidays till January 15 is the provocatively-titled 'Darwin in Malibu,' by Crispin Whittell, directed by founder Bruce Coughran, with Blake Street Hawkeyes alum Robert Ernst in the cast, performing with two of his longtime colleagues, George Killingsworth and Hal Hughes, as well as Leandra Ramm and Stuart Hall at the Berkeley City Club, 2315 Durant Avenue (between Ellsworth & Dana), on a holiday zigzag of a schedule: previews at 8 p. m. Thursday & Friday, December 22nd & 23rd & the 26th & 27th, Monday & Tuesday at 8; opening Wednesday the 28th at 8 and running Thursday and Friday the 29th & 30th--& in January, Thursday the 5th through Saturday the 7th at 8 & Wednesday the 11th through Saturday the 14th, also at 8, with 5 p. m. matinees Sunday the 8th & (closing) the 15th ... -more-