As Jimmy Rogers, 67, sat through a screening of the landmark civil rights documentary Eyes on the Prize Tuesday night in Berkeley, he was quick to point out the faces and names of the people he recognized from the time he spent in the south as a member of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee. -more-
Charging that the Lytton Band of Pomos acquired Casino San Pablo “the wrong way,” maverick Arizona Republican Sen. John McCain announced Thursday evening that he’ll hold hearings on a law that would reverse part of the tribe’s special status. -more-
The states’ leading toxics agency has ruled that Campus Bay poses “an imminent or substantial endangerment to the public health or welfare or to the environment because of a release or threatened release of a hazardous substance.” -more-
Berkeley’s newest landmark—technically a structure of merit—poses a potential hitch in plans to build a square block of condos at the University Avenue gateway to the city. -more-
Barring a sustained surge in the stock market, city leaders said Tuesday that Berkeley’s employee pension fund will continue to drain the city’s budget. -more-
The battle of the Berkeley Bowl—centered on the proposed cloning of the city’s most popular grocery store—heads to yet another round before the city Planning Commission. -more-
For months they stood before the City Council trading barbs and doing battle. -more-
During a week when steel foundation girders had only reached the second of floor above the gaping construction hole on Center Street in downtown Berkeley, Vista College president Judy Walters announced the kickoff of a five-year $10 million fundraising drive for money projected to be used in Vista’s new headquarters. -more-
Motorists speeding down Telegraph Avenue, beware. Officer Bob Rollins and, on occasion, his partners are lurking on side streets, their radar guns firing. -more-
Berkeley High’s new small-school SSJE (School of Social Justice and Ecology) is scheduled to open this fall with a curriculum that emphasizes “critical thinking.” Though it’s a good idea, “critical thinking” is one of those terms that has lost all meaning by repeated overuse. Plainly put, it simply means not necessarily accepting the conclusions put before you, but assembling (or re-assembling) the available facts, looking for the “contradictions” (another useful but much abused word), and making up your own mind as to what it all might mean. -more-
On Feb. 1, King Gyanendra of Nepal dissolved the government, declared a state of emergency, and claimed absolute power. Political opponents were arrested, including Prime Minister Deuba who was placed under house arrest. Army troops are patrolling the st reets and have occupied the parliament building, radio stations and newspaper offices. Freedom of the press and other forms of free speech, such as the right of assembly and the right to criticize the government, no longer exist according to announcements from the palace. -more-
President Bush’s program to privatize Social Security gives progressives an opportunity to advocate for an alternative approach, one which will instead increase the economic security of working people rather than fan their anxieties. It would also lift the benefits for all retirees without undermining the soundness of the social security trust fund. Indeed, rather than our energies being completely absorbed in defensive battles, it is incumbent upon us to project a progressive vision. Otherwise, we are allowing conservatives to define the issues, which lock us into a poverty of low expectations. -more-
I don’t normally comment on projects in other neighborhoods, as I don’t like people outside my neighborhood telling me what’s best for mine. I feel we each know our area the best. However, with the “expansion” of the Berkeley Bowl I will take an exception. -more-
With a little more than a week to go before their biggest challenge of the school year, members of the Berkeley High Debate Squad sit through their lunch period in an upstairs classroom, munch sandwiches, and plot strategy for the 32nd Annual Cal Berkeley Invitational Debate Tournament. -more-
It may appear small-minded to dwell on the point, but it does feel good to know that in Berkeley, you can actually see live drama for 10 (count’em 10!) bucks in a perfectly charming, completely traditional, theater. This seeming piece of magic occurs with absolute regularity in the Actors Ensemble productions at the Live Oak Theater in the Arts Building at 1301 Shattuck Ave. at Berryman. -more-
Lovers of Caribbean sounds, and world music listeners in general, are in for a pre-Valentine’s Day treat when Andy Narell brings the 14-piece steel drum band Calypsociation from Paris to the Chabot College Little Theater in Hayward for two shows Sun. Feb. 13 (at 2 p.m. and 7 p. m.) with local steel drummers The Chabot Panhandlers, under Jim Munzenrider’s direction, opening. -more-
It’s a tantalizingly warm winter day. I’m walking toward the sound of power—water tumbling down, around and across a series of rocks. Is this a canyon at 6,000 feet in the Sierras? No, I’m just one hour from home, approaching Little Yosemite, one of many natural wonders to discover at Sunol Regional Wilderness. -more-
Ash Wednesday was this week, the traditional opening day of six weeks of reflection for Christians. And today an old friend e-mailed a link to a website, rememberthesechildren.org, which lists the names and ages of children killed in the ongoing dispute between the Palestinians and the Israelis. The numbers alone are sobering. Since the first of this year, one Israeli child and 16 Palestinian children have died. Since September of 2000, dead Palestinian children number 671, with 118 Israeli kids dead. We’ll get letters, undoubtedly, pointing out that more children have probably died in Darfur, and in the tsunamis, and the letter writers will perhaps therefore try to minimize the impact of the deaths of the children in Israel. Or perhaps they will try to blame the adults who are associated with the dead children, and accuse them of negligence or of fomenting the strife which produced the deaths, or even of sending children on suicide missions. Such partisan argument misses the point: As long as the rest of us in the rest of the world acquiesce in the death of any child anywhere, we are participating in some way in causing these deaths. And in the words of John Dunne, “any man’s death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind.” -more-
