The purple ribbons fluttering in the wind inside the Berkeley High School courtyard symbolized the loss of BHS Vice Principal Denise Brown for the entire Berkeley Unified School District Monday. -more-

Seven years ago, the Atlantic Monthly published “The Kept University,” a story about a $25 million five-year liaison between the giant Swiss pharmaceutical company Novartis and California’s premier public university, UC Berkeley. -more-

With the final campaign expenditures for the November elections in on Jan. 31, it became definitive that the top spender was the losing challenger for District 7: George Beier. -more-

When Charles Hamilton teaches jazz at Berkeley High, every note has to be perfect. -more-

With a November deadline looming, the panel of citizens charged with helping the city draft a new downtown plan will pause to take stock Wednesday. -more-

The School Board will be meeting on Wednesday to receive information on the governor’s budget for fiscal year 2007-08, which was released on Jan. 10. -more-

With royal fanfare, British Petroleum just donated $500 million in research funds for UC Berkeley, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and the University of Illinois to develop new sources of energy—primarily biotechnology to produce biofuel crops. This comes on the anniversary of Berkeley’s hapless research deal with seed giant Novartis ten years ago. However, at half a billion dollars, the BP grant dwarfs Novartis’ investment by a factor of 10. The graphics of the announcement were unmistakable: BP’s corporate logo is perfectly aligned with the flags of the Nation, the State, and the University. -more-

The Zoning Adjustments Board will once again hear the request for a use permit for the conversion of Wright’s Garage on 2629-2635 Ashby Ave. into a multi-tenant commercial building on Thursday. -more-

East Bay Municipal Utilities District officials are urging their customers to ease off on the taps—at least until they can finish a much needed retrofit of the Claremont Tunnel. -more-

Steal music player, lose their bikes -more-

Some of Berkeley’s poorest older residents will soon be living in comfortable new quarters with the opening Thursday of the Margaret Breland Apartments. -more-

OAKS, BEVATRON -more-

Compared to adjacent communities, Berkeley is in many ways an attractive city to live in or to visit. But our city is very vulnerable to pressures brought by commercial real estate developers. A case in point is the pending application by Gordon Commercial for a use permit that includes a 5,000-square-foot restaurant and bar at Ashby just below College. If this application is granted, it will increase retail floor space in the four-block area surrounding College and Ashby by 11 percent, and quality of life in the neighborhood will decline for residents and visitor alike. -more-

The world’s best-loved cities all have something in common—beautiful public squares and plazas surrounded by magnificent buildings. They are the places where people meet and things happen, the places we tell stories about. Across the United States, public squares and plazas are being rediscovered as a powerful way of revitalizing and transforming downtowns. -more-

Sept. 11, 2001 was a terrible tragedy. For those of us who were up early that morning and were called to turn on the TV, we saw a horrible series of events—not read, not imagined—in real time. A worse tragedy occurred when our country, under false pretenses, attacked Iraq. Although the bombs, mortars, other sophisticated weapons were directed at Iraqis, the attack was also a less obvious one against Americans. -more-

The weekend of Jan. 26, speaker of the House and six-time grandmother Nancy Pelosi traveled to Iraq, Pakistan, and Afghanistan to get a personal view of George Bush’s “war” on terrorism. Judging from her initial comments, the trip hardened Pelosi’s opposition to Bush’s escalation of the war in Iraq. So, what should we expect the Pelosi-led Dems to do about Iraq? -more-

EDITOR’S NOTE: This week Susan Parker turns her column over to guest columnist Jernee Suga’ Baby Carter, writing in response to the Daily Planet’s call for writers to follow in Molly Ivins’s footsteps. -more-

All right, the season’s over. Put down that polesaw. I don’t mean the pruning season, exactly. I mean the pruning free-for-all season: that season where a pruner’s only concern is the anatomy and physiology of the tree being pruned. -more-