Someone set fire to a rainbow flag and punched a volunteer outside the Pacific Center for Human Growth in Berkeley Friday, possibly a sign of political changes in the U.S., the center's executive director said Monday. -more-

A student jogging on the fire trails above the University of California at Berkeley Thursday fought off a man who sneaked up behind her and tackled her to the ground, campus police said today. -more-

The fake-news president needs to learn to keep his mouth-trap shut. Every time he opens his small face-hole, out come lies, misinformation, lies, and insults. When he should be consoling the families of soldiers killed defending our country, he pities himself for having to make the phone calls. When he should be offering to help victims of natural disasters, he blames them and gives himself an A+ for his effort. -more-

While we point an accusing finger at “big bad wolf” Russia for hacking our 2016 election and spreading fake news with internet trolls and paid political ads, we conveniently ignore our own mass propaganda efforts during the Cold, Vietnam, Iraq and Afghanistan wars and many more too numerous to mention.

During the Cold War, the CIA orchestrated a relentless media blitz to shape American views of Russia. “Radio Free Europe” was created to wage a subversive campaign to weaken Communist satellite governments.

The crusade blasted anything from the “other side” as fake news, tactics that Trump has embraced on his twitter feed. As a former K.G.B. officer, Mr. Putin must have relished his own meddling as a long awaited payback. -more-

Following his failed promises to repeal and replace the ACA, revise the tax plan, build his “beautiful” wall, Trump took aim at scuttling the Iran deal.

Ignoring the statements of his cabinet, who stated that Iran was in full compliance and unable to comprehend the complexities of the deal, Trump punted its fate to Congress.

Perhaps Trump is unaware of our dark history with Iran, beginning with the overthrow of the democratically elected government in 1953 with the covert coup by the CIA and the British agency, MI6, which resulted in the theft of Iraq’s oil and the establishment of British Petroleum. The government was replaced by the US puppet, the Shah of Iran, who unleashed his secret police, the Savak, who rounded up and tortured tens of thousands of Iranians.

During the Iraq- Iran war, the CIA covertly provided massive shipments of arms including chemical weapons, to our former Iraqi ally, Saddam Hussein.

If the nuclear deal falters the US and Israel will be the losers. The US will remain isolated; there will be no appetite for further sanctions because most Western countries have already begun trading with Iran and establishing embassies. US companies will be excluded from such trading privileges. Iran will likely accelerate its nuclear bomb making capabilities and intensify their hostility towards Israel. They still recall Israel’s role in assassinating many of their nuclear scientists. If you're a supporter of the deal, contact your congressional representative before it’s too late. -more-

It would seem that if mental illness is a brain illness, mentally ill people would at least do better than someone who has had a mechanically caused brain issue, such as a tumor, an aneurism, a stroke, or a bad blow to the head. All of the latter things can be assessed accurately with medical equipment. -more-

We should be able to give the president of the United States the benefit of the doubt that his statements are true until facts suggest otherwise. We can no longer give this president that benefit. -more-

In Judaism, the period between the New Year and the Day of Atonement is known as the days of awe, when the observant delve into deep spirituality. It so happened that PBS broadcast the Ken Burns and Lynn Novick documentary The Vietnam War during the days of awe, so I watched it religiously. -more-

Written in 1948 during Franco’s Fascist regime in Spain, Albert Camus’s L’État de siège (State of Siege) may have gained a new relevancy in Trump’s America. Brought to our shores by Théàtre de la Ville-Paris, State of Siege was performed October 21-2 under the auspices of Cal Performances at Zellerbach Hall. Director Emmanuel Demarcy-Mota calls State of Siege “a grand allegory,” one that may help us face “the horrific perils such as we are now experiencing.” Though this play has clear albeit oblique references to both Fascist Spain and Nazi Germany, Camus’s State of Siege has eerie resonance in today’s world of Trump’s megalomania. Though nominally set in Cadiz, Spain, State of Siege offers a Kafkaesque view of totalitarian government everywhere it rears its ugly head. In some ways, this play reminded me of George Orwell’s 1984, for here too the meanings of words are turned on their heads. When a vote is scheduled in this play, one totalitarian functionary explains to another that the electorate is free. If they vote for the existing totalitarian government, he says, it proves they are free. If they vote against the oppressive regime, he says, it proves they are misled by sentimentality and are therefore not free. Such is the logic of dictators. I can imagine Trump saying this. -more-

Substituting for Sol Gabetta, who recently gave birth to her first child, cellist Joshua Roman gave a finely honed rendition of Antonin Dvorák’s great Cello Concerto in B minor. In a series of San Francisco Symphony concerts at Davies Hall, October 19-21, Joshua Roman teamed up nicely with conductor Krzysztof Urbanski, avoiding the mismatched difficulties that plagued the team of Urbanski and violinist Augustin Hadelich ten days or so ago in Mendelssohn’s Violin Concerto. Though I laid most of the blame on Hadelich for that highly unsatisfactory rendition of the Mendelssohn Violin Concerto, conductor Urbanski must shoulder some responsibility, for, ultimately, it is up to the conductor to bring in line a recalcitrant soloist. Happily, with Joshua Roman as soloist in Dvorák’s Cello Concerto, there was no need for Urbanski to right the ship, for Roman and Urbanski seemed to be on the same course from the outset. -more-

To cap off their weeklong residency at UC Berkeley, the Chicago Symphony Orchestra performed Johannes Brahms’ Symphony No. 2 in D Major and his Symphony No. 3 in F Major on Sunday afternoon, October 15, at Zellerbach Hall. Having heard Riccardo Muti conduct the CSO’s Friday evening concert, which featured a superb performance of Anton Bruckner’s Symphony No. 4 in E flat Major, “Romantic,” I couldn’t resist taking advantage of an opportunity to hear this great orchestra once again, even if Sunday’s all-Brahms program was, to my mind, the least interesting of the CSO’s three concert programs here. -more-

Théâtre de la Ville of Paris has staged creative productions here before--an impressive version of Ionesco's 'Rhinoceros' with something like virtual automata for the beasts, and more recently a fine version of a truly great play, Pirandello's 'Six Characters in Search of an Author's in 2014.

Now Cal Performances has brought them back this weekend with their production of Albert Camus' fourth play, 'State of Siege,' 1948 ('État de siège,' The original meaning closer to 'State of Emergency'), about a Spanish city--Cadiz--reduced to silence under authoritarian rule when a comet is seen overhead, and a citywide gag rule is declared concerning the omen, with a chorus parroting: "Nothing's happening, nothing will happen!" -more-