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-
Alonzo Carter was named as the new Head Coach for Berkeley High’s football program on Wednesday. -more-
With at least six residential development projects and one cathedral either proposed, approved or actually under construction within 800 feet of Lake Merritt, and the City of Oakland’s zoning code in something of a shambles, close to 150 Oakland residents came out to the Lake Merritt Garden Center on Wednesday night to share their issues about high-rise development around the lake. -more-
To build or not to build is the question North Shattuck residents and business owners find themselves asking about the proposed $3.5 million dollar plaza that would transform Berkeley’s Gourmet Ghetto to streetscape by closing off Shattuck Avenue between Vine and Rose street. The pedestrian plaza will be constructed on what is now a paved service road adjacent to the existing shops on the east side of Shattuck Avenue between Vine and Rose Streets. -more-
“To stop an illegal and unjust war, the soldiers and service members can choose to stop fighting it,” First Lt. Ehren Watada. -more-
After months of grappling, Pacific Steel Casting Co. (PSC) and non-profit Communities for a Better Environment (CBE) entered into a consent decree in Federal Court on Monday that would bring about specified emissions reductions, create a scrap metal inspection program, and establish a joint consultation committee to recommend and oversee ongoing pollution reduction efforts. -more-
Berkeley’s Transportation Commission joined the Downtown Area Plan Advisory Committee (DAPAC) on Wednesday to talk about transportation conditions in downtown Berkeley and explore options for transportation improvements. -more-
To the great disappointment of those who had hoped to save the 53-year-old Bevatron building housing a particle accelerator, the Berkeley City Council voted 7-to-2 at its Tuesday night meeting to uphold the Landmarks Preservation Commission decision to require that the science practiced in the structure be memorialized, but that there be no requirement to preserve the structure itself. -more-
On Wednesday night, Neil Smith, director of educational services for the Berkeley Unified School District (BUSD), delivered a presentation on student data for eight different tests to the School Board. This is the first report of its kind that compiles all of these high-stakes tests. -more-
While most Berkeleyans may have found last week the same as any other week, Berkeley High School (BHS) students found it more stressful than usual—they took their semester finals. -more-
The Albany-Berkeley Soccer Club Panthers defeated the Elk Grove Attack 4-0 on Sunday to win the under-14 Boys Association Cup state soccer championship played in Danville. -more-
It’s too bad Molly Ivins could not have been in Washington for the peace march on Saturday. She would have appreciated the overall tone of the event: -more-
It took seven years of neighborhood complaints to shut down Dwight Way Liquors on Sacramento Street and that was too long, say members of Berkeley Alcohol Policy Advocacy Coalition (BAPAC). -more-
Lately opinion@berkeleydailyplanet.com has been getting complaints not only about outrages and abuses in the wider world, and about our own supposed transgressions in the pages of the Planet, but about letters to the editors and other responsible parties in other media which the proprietors of same didn’t print. For example, we ran a couple of letters lambasting the San Francisco Chronicle for a particularly lame editorial on Lt. Ehren Watada’s refusal to fight in what he terms an illegal war. The editorial writer claimed that “no soldier can be allowed to pick and choose assignments, a notion that undercuts the necessary hierarchy of military order.” He or she must have been out the day they studied the Nuremberg Trials in history class in high school. To be fair, the Chronicle did publish one snappy letter the next day making this very point, but two other good ones which the Chron didn’t see fit to print ended up in the Daily Planet instead. Which is fine. Happy to be of service. -more-
As we had feared, Molly Ivins died on Wednesday. The anti-war war columns that we’d requested on Tuesday as a way of carrying on her last campaign have been coming in, and we’ll be printing one in every issue for a while as a tribute to her. We’ve also gotten, unsolicited, a good number of letters just expressing the writer’s appreciation for Molly herself, which we’ll add to our letters pages, some in print and all on the web. The Texas Observer, where she worked for many years and continued raising money for after she moved on, has put together an affecting memorial at texasobserver.org, another good place for readers to send their comments on Molly herself. -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-
EDITOR’S NOTE: This letter was sent to the mayor, City Council and the Downtown Area Plan Advisory Committee, as well as other city officials and local newspapers. -more-
I previously served on the Hotel Convention Center Museum Task Force of which Downtown Business Association (DBA), the Convention and Visitors’ Bureau and the Chamber of Commerce were all members. After presentations by all sides, the task force recommended the closure of Center Street to through vehicle traffic. The council adopted the recommendations of that task force. I now serve on the Downtown Area Plan Advisory Committee (DAPAC). More than any other interest group, over this last year downtown businesses have had the opportunity to and made presentations to the entire DAPAC and to its Center Street Subcommittee. Even at the subcommittee’s last meeting, most of the time was taken with presentations of DBA-solicited models & drawings and the one environmental presentation was severely restricted. DAPAC made no final determination but decided on a preferred study option—determine if a pedestrianized plaza will work on this street. This is the same decision that was previously made by the task force and by council. That’s what DAPAC (nearly two-thirds majority) decided last week. -more-
Mark McLeod has written a letter to the City Council, local papers and others which attacks the Downtown Area Plan Advisory Committee’s vote to support pedestrianization as the preferred option for Center Street between Shattuck and Oxford streets downtown where the new hotel and UC art museum are planned. -more-
It is heartening to learn that many readers of the Daily Planet understand the reality of the Israeli/Palestinian conflict. Others say they plan to approach Jimmy Carter’s new book, Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid, with an open and inquisitive mind. Below, I respond to Dan Spitzer’s and Rachel Neuwirth’s criticisms of my Jan. 9th op-ed on the subject. -more-
Mr. Spitzer’s latest misunderstanding of the Israel-Palestine disputes, and of President Carter’s recent book, deserves answers. -more-
Is Dan Spitzer fooling anyone when he calls himself a progressive? One aspect of Spitzer’s Jan. 30 letter to the Berkeley Planet is the use of disingenuous “facts” to create insupportable assumptions in the public mind. Thus the statements about what was offered by Israel to the Palestinians at the Clinton Camp David meetings are riddled with falsehood, but his letter attacking Joseph Lifschutz isn’t really about what Arafat allegedly rejected. (If anyone needs to know what Israel actually offered the Palestinians at camp David—there was no formal proposal--I suggest Israeli Professor Tanya Reinhart’s excellent and well documented book, Israel/Palestine: How to End the War of 1948. It’s all there). -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-
Unrest in Bolivia’s eastern provinces is spreading, as local landlords and the European-origin wealthy elite who dominate the region dig in to resist efforts by President Evo Morales to institute land reform and use the region’s natural gas reserves to raise national living standards. -more-
You could clearly see the change in Molly Ivins’ writing in the last weeks of her life. In large part, gone was the beer-and-bourbon with that we had come to love so much, along with that Texas way of looking at the world and the people therein that comes across both as straight-ahead and corner-out-the-eye at the same time, simultaneous, like you’re ready to face the world head-on, but just as ready to either reach for the pistol in your belt or head for the quickest way out, to laugh about it in great tales told in the shade of a summer porch sometime later, either way it came out. -more-
Skylights are great. Nearly everyone agrees. They lighten up dark spaces and do so without any energy expense but like so many things, what seems like a good thing at first glance is a bit more complex and not right for every situation. Moreover, as most people know, they come with the possibility of leaks. So let’s take a look at some of the issues associated with putting in a skylight, living with one that you have now and just for fun, some of the newer things happening in this corner of construction. -more-
I’d heard a rumor (Thanks, Chris!) that Ken’s Nursery in San Pablo was up for sale, so I moseyed on up San Pablo Avenue to that weird intersection like a broken asterisk, the corner of Where Value Village Used to Be and Where Bertola’s Used to Be. It’s just before the Mall Under Construction, mere blocks north of Casino San Pablo and the Alvarado adobe. -more-
In case you hadn’t heard, the Association of Bay Area Governments estimates that up to 80 percent of retrofits around here will be ineffective in even a moderate earthquake. -more-
OLD TIME MUSIC IN BERKELEY -more-
In his interview with Robert Hass to an overflowing crowd at International House, the Columbian artist Fernando Botero mentioned that when reading Seymour Hersh’s article in The New Yorker about American soldiers using torture in the same prison at Abu Ghraib where Saddam Hussein used similar violent tactics, he was deeply shocked. -more-
Robert Ernst, cofounder of ’70s-’80s Berkeley experimental performance cooperative The Blake Street Hawkeyes and writer, director, teacher, musician and actor, has a new play, Catherine’s Care, onstage for two more weeks in San Rafael. -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-
Typing by candlelight (“Like the old guys ... the forefathers”), a nervous, diffident screenwriter fends off the attentions of his feral older brother, a rawboned galoot just in from the desert, spilling potato chips over the writer and ruffling his hair, darkly exclaiming, “Don’t worry about me; I’m not the one to worry about!”—as crickets chirp and there’s talk of coyotes killing cocker spaniels in suburbia by the San Gabriels, in Actors Ensemble’s production of Sam Shepard’s True West at Live Oak Theatre. -more-
Skylights are great. Nearly everyone agrees. They lighten up dark spaces and do so without any energy expense but like so many things, what seems like a good thing at first glance is a bit more complex and not right for every situation. Moreover, as most people know, they come with the possibility of leaks. So let’s take a look at some of the issues associated with putting in a skylight, living with one that you have now and just for fun, some of the newer things happening in this corner of construction. -more-
I’d heard a rumor (Thanks, Chris!) that Ken’s Nursery in San Pablo was up for sale, so I moseyed on up San Pablo Avenue to that weird intersection like a broken asterisk, the corner of Where Value Village Used to Be and Where Bertola’s Used to Be. It’s just before the Mall Under Construction, mere blocks north of Casino San Pablo and the Alvarado adobe. -more-
In case you hadn’t heard, the Association of Bay Area Governments estimates that up to 80 percent of retrofits around here will be ineffective in even a moderate earthquake. -more-
A Jan. 30 story on landmarking the Bevatron wrongly identified the Lawrence Berkeley National Lab’s affiliations: the University of California manages and operates LBNL for the Department of Energy. -more-
