Posted Wed., March 12—Margaret Lowry—removed from her position as Willard Middle School vice principal last week—has resigned and will leave the district at the end of the school year. -more-
Adding fuel to a state agricultural department plan already under fire, spraying seven heavily populated northern California counties to eradicate the light brown apple moth (LBAM), a just-released report says the pest, present in New Zealand for 100 years, is controlled there by natural predators and that California should follow suit. -more-
A community meeting Saturday focused on recent allegations of racism at Cragmont Elementary School. Organized by the People’s Institute of Survival and Beyond at its Bancoft Way office, the meeting was one of a series planned to bring together local activists, parents and teachers to discuss racism in the city’s schools. -more-
For investors, biofuels and other green technology could be the Next Big Thing, Al Gore’s business partner told Berkeley faculty and students Friday. -more-
Want to build green? The best way isn’t to build at all, but to retrofit an existing building, says architect and green building expert Sandra Mendler. -more-
It could take some 20 years and $31 million for the city to fully implement the Pedestrian Master Plan, a draft of which the transportation division delivered to the City Council this week. -more-
A tree-sitter in Sproul Plaza was not arrested Monday, though supporters said they were concerned about him when some eight UC Berkeley Police including the chief and assistant chief surrounded the tree. -more-
Lawyers in the battle over the UC Berkeley Memorial Stadium-area projects will have their last courtroom say on Friday. -more-
The Oakland City Council At-Large race took an unexpected turn last week when incumbent Henry Chang opted not to file for re-election, and a major challenger, Oakland Unified School District Board member Kerry Hamill, delayed filing until this week. -more-
The Berkeley Planning Commission faces a single issue on its Wednesday night agenda: the ever-controversial density bonus. -more-
Berkeley Unified School District’s kindergarten enrollment is on the rise. -more-
The Berkeley Landmarks Preservation Commission voted unanimously to designate the Hezlett’s Silk Store building at 2277 Shattuck Ave. as a City of Berkeley landmark Thursday. -more-
On the shortest day of the year, a sunny day sandwiched between rainy ones enticed me out of the house. In spite of the arthritis pain gnawing my left hip, I decided to go to the Berkeley Marina for a few power laps around Cesar Chavez Park. With each step the joint grated like metal on metal, but I was determined to overwhelm it with exercise. -more-
Posted Sun., March 9—We were out at Lafayette Reservoir a couple of weeks ago, looking for the bald eagle that wasn’t there. But there was a fair amount of butterfly action: a probable echo blue, some small hyperactive orange jobs, and three or four mourning cloaks, sparring or courting—it’s hard to tell with butterflies. -more-
Oakland joined a fast-growing collaboration of cities, organizations, legislators and citizens on Tuesday looking for political and legal means to force the state to back off from plans for aerial spraying of pesticide over parts of Northern California to eradicate the Light Brown Apple Moth (LBAM). -more-
The draft city Climate Action Plan presented to Berkeley planning commissioners Wednesday night resembles another document in their possession: the proposed new Downtown Area Plan. -more-
Margaret Lowry—removed from her position as Willard Middle School vice principal—was placed on special assignment Tuesday with Berkeley Unified School District’s central staff. -more-
The administration of Oakland Mayor Ron Dellums hit the trifecta on Tuesday, winning City Council passage of two major initiatives and claiming victory in contract arbitration with the powerful Oakland Police Officers Association police union. -more-
While candidates decided whether or not to put their toes in the water of several Oakland City Council and Oakland School Board races, announced candidates in the hotly contested state seats of Senate District 9 and Assembly District 14 continued to raise war chests for the June 3 election. -more-
The Berkeley Zoning Adjustments Board (ZAB) gave nods to three big projects last week, which propose to add a restaurant downtown, build a bio fuels station in South Berkeley and permit a child care center for Pixar employees in West Berkeley. -more-
A San Leandro man was fatally shot Monday night on California Street, just seven blocks north of the scene of another murder eight days earlier. -more-
Registered Nurses at Alta Bates Summit Medical Center have voted to call for a 10-day strike, along with nurses at 10 other Sutter Health facilities. -more-
The San Francisco Bay Guardian won a $15.6 million judgment Wednesday against the San Francisco Weekly and its parent company, the 16-paper Village Voice Media, for predatory business practices—but the Guardian’s not counting the big bills yet, says Executive Editor Tim Redmond. -more-
The menace of layoffs at Bay Area News Group [BANG] newspapers—which now include the Contra Costa Times, the West County Times, the Berkeley Voice, the East Bay Daily News and the Oakland Tribune, among others—has passed for the moment. -more-
A San Francisco jury found the San Francisco Weekly and its corporate parent guilty Wednesday of illegal predatory pricing and awarded us $6.39 million. -more-
The Berkeley Unified School district will be sending out possible layoff notices to its certified staff by March 15 in the face of the proposed $4.6 billion state education budget cut crisis, district officials confirmed Monday. -more-
More than 50 seniors, parents with toddlers and teenage moms crammed inside a Berkeley Unified School District conference room Tuesday to voice their support for the LifeLong Health Center at 2031 Sixth St. -more-
What venerable UC Berkeley tradition, having fallen onto hard times, has its fans hoping that it’s on the verge of a comeback? -more-
Collecting one’s thoughts from time to time is a good idea. Thus I welcome the opportunity of being asked to speak today to a class at the University of California law school formerly known as Boalt Hall, billed as a Workshop on Development and the Environment. This semester’s focus is on downtown Berkeley. The speaker list includes several from the Downtown Area Planning and Advisory Committee (DAPAC), the mayor, developer Patrick Kennedy (twice), and jazz club proprietor Anna De Leon, one of his dissatisfied tenants. (She’s also an attorney who recently won a suit on behalf of citizen clients against the city of Berkeley for letting Kennedy play fast and loose with the conditions on his use permit.) A mixed bag, in other words, and what could I add to the mix? -more-
There are people who can’t tell the difference between red wine and white wine if they close their eyes. Some can’t tell a pansy from a petunia. If you ask some others (perhaps mostly men) to get a blue towel off a shelf, they won’t be able to decide which is the green one and which is the blue one—and they certainly can’t distinguish between chartreuse and turquoise. Many people think Debussy and Mantovani sound pretty much alike. Half the world, perhaps, would say confidently that Andrea Bocelli is as good as Placido Domingo. And they’d be wrong. -more-
Last Thursday I gave water to a young man sitting in a tree on the campus of the University of California, Berkeley. I was arrested for it. It took only a moment to make the decision to throw him water, and I was told by another student that I would likely be arrested, but I acted because I doubted the existence of a law in which a person could legally be denied water, a basic human need. I was cited for PC 148a(1), which is obstructing or disobeying the orders of a police officer. -more-
“City of Berkeley, the water is murky” has become the latest rap on the city’s crumbling storm drain infrastructure. For nearly two decades, Berkeley’s Clean Water efforts in controlling surface water pollution have amounted to little more than a “greenwash” of meaningless phrases such as “Save the Bay.” -more-
In the recent political battle around the Marine recruiting station in Berkeley there has been much confusion around the concept or slogan of “supporting the troops,” but opposing the unjust wars of the Bush regime. Many who oppose the Bush regime wars also say they “support the troops.” Let me say it straight out—I do not support the troops and neither should you. It is objectively impossible to support the troops of the imperialist military forces of the U.S. and at the same time oppose the wars in which they fight. -more-
Editors, Daily Planet: -more-
I agree with J. Douglas Allen-Taylor’s (does he have a shorter name ?) recent column that progressives are left with an embarrassment of riches—two credible, serious candidates, either of whom would be a good choice for president. We are in a win-win position having two Democrats running for office against an opponent, John McCain, who has little or nothing compelling, professionally or personally, that would make someone vote for him besides his service in Vietnam. What might derail a Democratic victory would be unfair and untrue attacks on the part of the candidates and the unspoken competition that exists between different classes and groups in our society. -more-
March is “National Nutrition Month” in our schools. The city of Berkeley has long been committed to fitness and nutrition education as chronic disease prevention, and in September the council members kicked off a nine-month campaign to engage the community with their goals, calling it “Be Fit Berkeley.” For the past six years a group of gardeners, Farmers’ Market people, school nutrition advocates, and city staff have met to coordinate various nutrition-education activities. March 8, this Saturday, will be “Be Fit Berkeley Day!” with health screening activities at the Farmers’ Market. Later this month there will be cooking demonstrations at the Tuesday Markets with Kirk Lumpkin, as well as a special Berkeley High School lunch event on March 20th. Certain schools with grants from “Network for a Healthy California” will have events at their schools; for instance Malcolm X will have a Health Fair, LeConte will have a Spring Fair, and there will be mini-farmers’ markets at John Muir, Emerson, and Rosa Parks. Since I am a garden advocate (I run the “Berkeley Community Gardening Collaborative”) I want to encourage people to grow their own vegetables, and one way to help gardeners out is to give away city compost on Sat. March 29 at the Farmers’ Market (bring two buckets or one large bag). -more-
California Department of Food and Agriculture (CDFA) Secretary Kawamura’s recent dog and pony show that he has been trotting out before many city councils and commissions promoting the light brown apple moth (LBAM) aerial pesticide spraying of the Bay Area relies on blatant misrepresentations of the truth, fear-mongering and outright lies. The spray program he defends imperils California’s families, children, pets, and the environment, based on no real science and no solid facts. -more-
We were out at Lafayette Reservoir a couple of weeks ago, looking for the bald eagle that wasn’t there. But there was a fair amount of butterfly action: a probable echo blue, some small hyperactive orange jobs, and three or four mourning cloaks, sparring or courting—it’s hard to tell with butterflies. -more-
Two of the problems with some of the early scathing criticisms of Oakland Mayor Ron Dellums—specifically the charge that he was a “do nothing” mayor—were that they were highly premature, at the very least, and failed to take into account Mr. Dellums' particular operating style. -more-
Teeming with pizza, bagel, and t-shirt outlets, surrounded by ethnic-food courts and cheap retail arcades, the intersection of Telegraph and Durant Avenues is inconceivable as an exclusive residential enclave reserved for millionaires' mansions set amidst spacious gardens and fronted by orderly rows of palm trees. -more-
I live in a slide zone. As I understand it, the land my house is bobbing about on is a colloid of tumbled rock and Cuisinarted soil, the remains of an avalanche, hundreds of years now past. Since this material isn’t “consolidated” or compressed by time into a hard cake, it tends to amble downhill as gravity would have it. (I’m turning 50 and, as my friend Joann would say, my local gravity is also increasing so I know how the house feels). -more-
I’ve liked Alden Lane Nursery ‘way out in Livermore since I first set foot in it over ten years ago. The big valley oaks that shade parts of the place won my splintery old heart immediately, and I saw evidence of real community involvement along with the more concrete stuff: primo nursery stock, interesting ornaments, good tools, less-toxic pest controls. -more-
Golden Thread Productions, the Bay Area troupe that specializes in expressions of Middle Eastern culture and identity, will present What Do The Women Say?—five pieces ranging stylistically from theater to performed poetry—at La Pena Cultural Center Friday at 8 p.m. to celebrate International Women’s Day. -more-
Chanticleer, San Francisco’s famed choral group, and the Shanghai Quartet, one of China’s original chamber music ensembles, will be featuring “From the Path of the Beautiful,” a seven-part piece written for them by composer Chen Yi in celebration of their anniversaries (30 years for Chanticleer, 25 for the Shanghai Quartet) when they perform this Friday evening at 8 p.m. at the First Congregational Church on Durant. -more-
We were out at Lafayette Reservoir a couple of weeks ago, looking for the bald eagle that wasn’t there. But there was a fair amount of butterfly action: a probable echo blue, some small hyperactive orange jobs, and three or four mourning cloaks, sparring or courting—it’s hard to tell with butterflies. -more-
How big is big? At the 58th annual Berlin Film Festival, or Berlinale, in February, 387 movies were shown in 11 days on 38 screens in 15 theaters operating from 9 a.m. to past midnight. -more-
The myth of Orson Welles has outlived its usefulness. The man has long since passed on, as have those who sought to undermine his achievements. He was jealously branded by Hollywood as the wunderkind-turned-enfant terrible of the cinema, the man who took on a media titan, and Hollywood itself, in Citizen Kane and then squandered his own career with his proclivity for self-destruction and artistic excess. The standard line on Welles was that he created just that single masterpiece before embarking on a long downward slide. -more-
“For Romeo & Juliet we're playing with no language, so we call it 'according to Shakespeare,’” said Jim Cave of his show with Deborah Gwinn, Romeo & Juliet and Other Duets, which just opened at The Marsh in San Francisco. “For The Chairs, it’s ‘after Ionesco.’ There are maybe a couple pages of text; the rest went out the window. We tell both of these stories in our own peculiar way. And as the run develops, we may add other little pieces.” -more-
Jukebox Tales: The Case of the Creamy Foam puts the team of Prince Gomovilas and Brandon Patten back together, alternating story and song on a messy set in the basement of La Val's Pizza, a bedroom strewn with the domestic wreckage of young bachelorhood. Sometimes Brandon, after capping off a tune, slips under the sheets and asks Prince for a bedtime story—a funny request before a roomful of spectators. -more-
Teeming with pizza, bagel, and t-shirt outlets, surrounded by ethnic-food courts and cheap retail arcades, the intersection of Telegraph and Durant Avenues is inconceivable as an exclusive residential enclave reserved for millionaires' mansions set amidst spacious gardens and fronted by orderly rows of palm trees. -more-
I live in a slide zone. As I understand it, the land my house is bobbing about on is a colloid of tumbled rock and Cuisinarted soil, the remains of an avalanche, hundreds of years now past. Since this material isn’t “consolidated” or compressed by time into a hard cake, it tends to amble downhill as gravity would have it. (I’m turning 50 and, as my friend Joann would say, my local gravity is also increasing so I know how the house feels). -more-
I’ve liked Alden Lane Nursery ‘way out in Livermore since I first set foot in it over ten years ago. The big valley oaks that shade parts of the place won my splintery old heart immediately, and I saw evidence of real community involvement along with the more concrete stuff: primo nursery stock, interesting ornaments, good tools, less-toxic pest controls. -more-
