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Bloomington, Indiana, a Friday night in April, there’s a rally downtown to open the new Barack Obama campaign center. About 50 or so people are milling about the small room, holding plates of food in one hand and shaking strangers’ hands with the other. For the first time in 40 years, a Democratic candidate has a reason to open a campaign office in Indiana.

Now that results from Pennsylvania are in, the state of Indiana may be the tie-breaker, holding the deciding votes that may choose the next Democratic nominee.

The effect on the state party has been profound. Suddenly awakened, the state Democratic Party is witnessing action among its ranks of a type not seen since 1968 when Robert F. Kennedy challenged Eugene McCarthy for frontrunner status and made Indiana the jumping off point of his presidential bid.

New voter registration is up exponentially this year with 150,000 adding their names to the rolls of over 5 million voters this year. People are lining up to volunteer for their preferred candidate’s campaign, and contributions to the state Democratic Party have totaled $1.6 million this year. Republicans pulled in $1.3 million in comparison, a difference that could prove portentous come general election time.

In fact at Friday’s Obama rally, State Representative Matt Pierce (D—district 61) remarked on his observation that people are “coming out of the woodwork” to help out.

“The most exciting thing is that there are a lot of people here that I don’ t know,” he said. “It’ s usually just the party stalwarts, but now particularly, young people are making a difference.”

Will the excitement have lasting effects on the Democratic Party in Indiana? Pierce said that “remains to be seen, but it’s a big opportunity to create a new generation of activists. A lot of that has to do with the outcome this fall. If [Obama wins], people will see that their individual efforts paid off and they’ ll be coming back in future campaigns,” he said.

Already the presidential campaign seems to have affected the party. The promise of greater turnout has contributed to more longshot candidates entering the arena in the hopes of capitalizing on the grassroots nature of the revitalization. There will be people coming out to vote, many for the first time, who have felt that their issues never had a chance of being voiced. Now there are people lining up to represent them that want to carry these unheard concerns into the legislatures.

Gretchen Clearwater is running as a Democrat against incumbent Baron Hill (D—Indiana) in the 9th Congressional District race and says she has high hopes that the expected record turnout will ultimately benefit first-time candidates like herself, but that she’s felt some antipathy from state party leaders in regards to her candidacy. She cites the fact that the state party has refused to list on its website four candidates running in her district as Democrats.

“The state party has deemed them irrelevant,” she says. “There is no opportunity for voters to choose representation. To not give the voter the opportunity to see who I am is not democracy.”

Clearwater says that when she announced her candidacy, she received a call from someone in the state office (she refused to say who) who tried to persuade her not to run and to back Baron Hill instead. She said the voice on the other end told her that the state party bosses were afraid when she got to Washington, she wouldn’ t vote the way they told her to.

“When someone like me runs, it throws a cog in the works,” she says.

Matthew Colglazier, a Democratic candidate running for state Senate in district 44 in Southern Indiana, believes the expected increased turnout can only help challengers like him.

“Major things can happen in a 24-hour news cycle,” he says. “Voter registrations being up definitely benefits my campaign, it’s fortuitous for a guy like me.”

“People feeling empowered is always a good thing, and this election can help do that. I’m personally excited about it,” he says.

Colglazier faces a steep hill, though, because he’s challenging well-seated Republican incumbent, Brent Steele.

For the last 40 years, candidates like Clearwater and Colglazier would probably have looked at the Democratic turnouts in the state and decided there was no way an unknown, first-timer would have had the support to unseat an incumbent, especially in their own party. But record voter registrations and the promise of record turnouts (the state party projects somewhere in the range of 900,000 Democrats) may play the wildcard in the turnover rate.

State party chair and superdelegate Dan Parker predicts that the increased turnout will ultimately benefit the incumbents. He also agrees that the prospect of the Democrats holding sway in a presidential election for the first time in 40 years can only be good for the party, with lasting effects.

“We’re going to have record turnout, record organizing (thousands of identified volunteers, phone calls, canvassing, candidate IDs) and record dollars spent on television,” he said. “In the past we’ve never had spending by the candidates in Indiana. Therefore our state was not even contested. With the issue environment, Indiana should be competitive and I think the primary will help build that foundation.”

The feeling from party chairs, volunteer coordinators, staff, and the volunteers themselves has been one of optimism and excitement that their party matters again. They never expected it to come to this point, a sentiment reflected in a statement made by Tim Granholm, the coordinator of the local chapter of Students for Barack Obama the night of the Obama rally.

“We never thought it would come to IU,” Granholm said. “We’ re pretty excited to be a part of it. Students have always been supportive, but now people are coming to us wanting to know what they can do to help.”

That’ s what Representative Pierce meant when he said, “coming out of the woodwork.”

Tyler Duffy is one of those who came out to help the Clinton campaign. Duffy is the vice president of Students for Hillary on Campus and says one can’ t help but see the change in the Democratic climate.

“This has brought a lot of people out that wouldn’ t normally. People are much more motivated, we don’ t want another eight years of Republican government,” he says.

The Clinton campaign has nearly 30 offices in Indiana and is seeing the same kind of dedication from its volunteers according to Stephanie French, the regional press director of Hoosiers for Hillary.

“There was so much pressure on Hillary to win Pennsylvania and now that she has the support is coming out even stronger. I feel that Hoosiers can relate to Pennsylvanians and from this point out the momentum needs to stay,” she says.

In Brown County, Democratic Party chair, Kurt Young says the lasting effects of the new blood in the party won’t be clear until after the general election in the fall. But Young says some old election patterns are changing already.

“I think a lot of people have gotten away from the usual rhetoric and propaganda. Politics has gotten to the point where it’s 30-second sound bytes. This primary has had a positive effect because it requires people to pay closer attention and realize not everything said in a campaign is accurate,” he says. “Democracy is not a spectator sport.”

The Daily Planet sat down with the four candidates in the California Assembly District 14 race recently and asked their views on various issues. The Daily Planet will reproduce portions of their responses in upcoming issues, beginning this week with the issue of health care.

Last year, two different pieces of legislation were introduced in Sacramento to change California’s health insurance system. One was a packet of legislation by Senator Sheila Kuehl of Santa Moncia, SB840/SB1014, the so-called single-payer packet, in which California would have set up a system of universal health care, similar to what is present in Canada and the United Kingdom.

The second was the coalition package (AB8/ABX) that originally began with an alliance between Senate President Don Perata and Assembly Speaker Fabian Nuñez, eventually including Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, but Perata ultimately withdrew his support from it after the projected budget deficits were announced.

The AD14 candidates were asked how they would have voted on both of these legislative packages, as well as what their own health care legislative goals would be if they won the Democratic nomination in June and were elected to the legislature next November.

Phil Polakoff, Berkeley physician

I want to quote what I heard last night, listening to Barack Obama, “the urgency of now.” What I want to do in California is the “urgency of now,” what is needed now, and what is needed to do a structural overhaul of the entire health care delivery system. It’s not just saying we need single payer, we need to reform health care completely. We need to have the conversation. And we have to have all the stakeholders at the table. We can’t just have a bill that’s run by the California Nurses Association and blocked by everybody else. Everyone’s going to have to be at the table. And it’s going to have to be both parties. It can’t be just Republicans or Democrats.

If I can accomplish four things, I’d be very satisfied that I made a contribution to the state.

If I can, one, raise the level of involvement of all parties in disease prevention, health promotion, that’ll be a plus. To take on the issue of the rampant nutritional issues that are leading to the increase in obesity and diabetes. To take on the problems of air quality resulting in instances of very elevated rates of asthma. Two, if I could make sure that we legislate that no person is denied health care because of pre-existing condition. That’s doable. Three, if I could deal with the fact that people are having their health insurance taken away after they have catastrophic illness. That would be a success. Four, if I could make the state better prepared for any sort of emergency, so if there’s an earthquake, or if there’s a pandemic flu, that we’re better prepared.

We’re not going to solve all these problems, but if we can make the people of California healthier, better prepared from a major assault, whether it’s deliberate or non-deliberate. The emergency rooms are ill-prepared to take on a major problem. Those are the four major things.

There’s no lack of energy put into the reform effort last year. It just wasn’t done correctly. You can have a lot of action, but last year I don’t think the action was in a way that would get specific goals accomplished. All we have now is an incredibly complex, convoluted, inefficient, frightfully expensive delivery mechanism. If you have the access, and you know where to go, you can get the best treatment in the world. But if you don’t know where to go, you don’t have the access, you don’t have the knowledge, it’s frankly scary to people involved in the process, at any age. I would like to be the point person in reigniting the dialogue, and the conversation.

When I was in the legislature [in the 1980s Polakoff worked as a consultant to the state senate's industrial relations committee on workers’ compensation issues] there was always good politics and good policy that everyone could end up being proud of. AB32, the global warming solution, that’s something I think people are proud about. AB12, childhood nutrition, I think that’s something people are proud about. I don’t think anyone really is proud about AB8, ABX, or these other similar bills as they went through the process. I think people worked very hard. I think there was some positive movement. So if you ask me if I’d be happier if we had accomplished something, yes. It would have been incremental, but we would have made some forward movement. And it could have been amended, and we could have learned from it. Now there’s a demoralization. The forces up there don’t know where the leadership’s coming from. There’s those that believe we can redo SB840, single payer. History hasn’t played well on that. And we don’t have the resources, right now, to do a complete re-do of the entire health system. So we need to work on more incremental steps, with pilot projects.

Nancy Skinner, East Bay Regional Park Director

The current state of health care is that the haves have it, and more than the have-nots do not. And when I say more than the have-nots, I mean that there are many people working 40 hour per week jobs, skilled people, trained people, doing high-quality 40 hour per week jobs, who have no health care. Because their job doesn’t provide it, or they are self-employed and the insurance companies won’t give it to them, either because of pre-existing conditions or because of some other problem. So basically you have this incredible crisis in health care in California. You have up to 7 million without any health care. And then you have a whole separate category of people with, really, inadequate because either their deductible is too high, because it doesn’t cover lots of basic medical needs, or it doesn’t cover dental, for example. So health care is in a complete crisis, and we’ve got to fix it. It’s embarrassing. I don’t even want to use that phrase. It’s immoral, to be the seventh largest economy in the world and to not provide basic human rights.

Single payer is the most efficient method to provide health care for everyone. We should treat it like other basic services. Like fire protection. Like safety and police protection. We pool our resources, we put the funds together, and we provide the service. We should do the same with health care. And that’s basically what single payer is. And we have single payer now in the form of MediCal and MediCare. They still use private doctors and hospitals, so it’s not that you have to have the government run the delivery system. What single payer is, is a mechanism for paying the resources and having employers contribute, employees contribute, state income tax contribute, to provide health care for everyone in the state.

As far as the Perata-Nuñez-Schwarzenegger effort, after it was written, my concern about that bill was that it didn’t go far enough in the process to get the kind of amendments that would have made it acceptable. It could have had the impact of creating a circumstance where employers who now provide health care benefits might drop theirs, because the mechanism that was being put in that bill might have made it cheaper but might not have covered adequately. So then people who otherwise had a pretty decent health care package with their employer might have lost that coverage. My understanding of the bill was that it would have still had some level of coverage, but it might not have been adequate. So there were a lot of aspects of that bill that really, before I could have supported it, would have needed a lot of amendments. And that discussion didn’t really take place, because it got basically pulled. So single payer, basically, is the way to go. It pools resources and provides for everybody.

Clearly, more organizing and development of more support needs to occur to get the political will to enact what is the most cost-effective system. In the meantime, there are other programs that we can expand. In the Healthy Families program, we can raise that so people of a higher income level can qualify. And we can create some mandates on employers to provide health care coverage. It’s still a worthwhile step, if we take some of our largest employers, like WalMart. The fact that they do not provide health benefits is a huge cost to the state. The state is, in effect, then subsidizing WalMart for the fact that they do not provide health benefits for their employees. So mandates like that. And negotiating with the pharmaceutical companies to put caps on the price of those medicines. California could do that.

Tony Thurmond, Richmond City Councilmember

As you know, 7 million Californians are without health insurance. And that is just wrong in a state that has the wealth and resources that we do. We can fix health care. I support single payer. I passed a resolution in our City Council supporting SB840. I work on health care on some basis with youth in Alameda County who are transitioning out of foster care. We provide a clinic for them and we provide some referrals to mental health services. Many of the youth have MediCal, which is awfully underfunded. So the governor wanting to cut the budget in critical areas like MediCal, for a clinic like mine, what we get back for our reimbursement rate is something really low. Probably 30 percent of the actual cost that we put out. We raise grants and contracts. We have contracts with the Alameda County Social Services Agency.

So the governor’s cut threats to social services has a threat not just to MediCal but to the youth population that we serve, who don’t have insurance. Many of them are over 21. After 21, they are no longer eligible for even MediCal. So I think we need a system like single payer. I’ll advocate for that in the legislature. I think we need a system that puts patients over costs. Every dollar that we spend on health care, a big chunk of that money, maybe a third, is going to overhead and administrative costs. I’m going to advocate for a single payer system, and if we need to work towards incremental systems while we’re getting there, getting to a larger system, I will always place emphasis on reducing costs, so that we’re focusing on those who need care.

As far as the Perata-Nuñez bill, I want to preface my remarks that I would have pushed for single payer. That’s from a policy perspective and a personal perspective. My brother, who was 35, passed away in 2004. He lost his job. He lost his insurance. He stopped taking care of himself. He later was diagnosed with a liver disorder that he never knew he had. A very rare liver disorder. I believe that if he had insurance, he would have taken care of himself, and he might still be here today. There’s no guarantee. But I know from experience that people make choices sometimes and not take care of themselves when they’re not sure how to pay for it.

I read a study about cancer. It’s on the rise in the African-American community, where people aren’t going to a doctor because they weren’t sure how they were going to pay for it. That’s why I have the preference for single payer, because I think that when people start making sacrifices that are going to impact their health, we’ve got it all twisted. Having said that, if it’s going to take hard work and long term advocacy to get to single payer, and we need to do this incrementally, I could have supported the Perata-Nuñez bill if it placed emphasis on containing costs. I’ve been an employer and a supervisor for 15 years. And I’ve seen that it is important that employers provide health care for their employees. And I think there should be a greater emphasis on asking the employers to provide health insurance to their employees.

Kriss Worthington, Berkeley City Councilmember

In a country and a state which is supposedly one of the richest and wealthiest countries and states in the world, we have incredible millions of people uninsured. And even ones who are insured are not adequately covered to take care of any kind of serious emergency. So I think many people would say that the health care system is in a state of crisis.

In the long-term, I support a single payer system to totally change the whole structure on the state and national level, for that matter. I guess one of the differences between me and what some of the other candidates say is I am realistic, and even though many moderate Democrats voted for SB840, that doesn’t actually mean that they support single payer and will fight to make it happen. At some of the candidate meetings, some of the candidates talk about SB840 like, oh, we’ve got that, we just need to get a new governor.

Sheila Kuehl is brilliant, having talked the Democrats into voting for it, and making Arnold Schwarzenegger the bad guy to veto it, but in reality, a lot of the Democrats didn’t actually support the companion bill [SB1014] which would have actually made it possible for SB840 to be implemented.

The difference between the two bills (SB840 and SB1014) is sort of like the difference between a proclamation from the City Council saying, “Wow, wow, wow, we think you’re great,” versus an ordinance or legislation actually funding something. So SB840, saying “we like single payer”, got approved. SB1014, the bill that would have actually made it happen, didn’t go anywhere. And there are a lot of Democrats who were against it, which isn’t surprising, given how much money the health care corporations and insurance companies pumped into state assembly and senate campaigns. It’s not shocking. The amazing thing is that [Kuehl’s] such a brilliant organizer that she was able to talk them into voting for the part that she did. But you can’t go to Sacramento in January thinking, well, we’ve got the Democrats on board, we’ve just got to get a new governor and we’ve got to push through single payer, and the public supports us.

The polls actually show that the public wants reform, but when the corporate interests spend their fortunes, as they did on SB2, the Burton one--- The polls show that the public supported that bill, which put more pressure on employers to provide more insurance. Once it got referended--the corporate interests spent enough money to put it on the ballot and referend it--it got voted down. And that wasn’t anything near as ambitious as single payer. So it’s awfully more complicated than some of the candidates let on.

As for the Perata-Nuñez bill, I would have aggressively tried to amend it. I think the state labor federation laid out some of the flaws remaining. In a way, I think my position would have been similar to theirs, in that I would have supported it if was amended. One of the flaws was that you were forcing some of these people to get insurance, but you were not making it so that they could afford the insurance. If you have a law that you have to have insurance and it takes up 50 percent of your income, what good is that law? There weren’t sufficient restrictions built into it. This has to do with the whole nature of how Democrats relate to Schwarzenegger. They cave in to him. But when Democrats have shown a backbone and stood up to Schwarzenegger, they’ve been able to defeat him.

When somebody wants to get something done, you push them to get something decent so that you can vote for it, but not have horrible, unintended consequences. If I were going to be the deciding vote on whether or not AB8 won, I could not have voted against it and made it lose, but I would have been fighting much more aggressively to try to get a series of amendments to it.

Like every other Left-of-David-Brooks opinion writer in the country, I’m longing to lay into television journalism in general, ABC’s in particular, and especially George Stephanopoulos and Charles Gibson for the travesty of an interview show that was wrongly labelled as a presidential primary debate last week.

Bill Ayers? Bill Ayers! Give me a break.

Poor Barack Obama knows so little about the guy that he thinks he’s an English prof, when in fact he’s a Distinguished Professor of Education (that’s a title at his school.) For you younger kids like Barack who don’t remember Bill, he’s the big brother of Rick Ayers, who was a popular Berkeley high teacher for many years. When Bill was even younger than you are today, he was a foolish revolutionary, but he’s been so over that for such a long time.

(Once a long time ago I met Bill Ayers at a party. Someone handed him a smelly cigarette, but before he could inhale another guy slapped it out of his hand, saying “Don’t you know that stuff’s illegal?” Bill just smiled. A cool head, as we used to say. Never saw him again, but I guess I won’t try to run for president with that story in my past.)

It gets harder and harder to have an intelligent conversation about politics in this country, and the networks formerly known as major are no help. Or at least I think that’s true, since our TV died a while back and we haven’t felt the need to get a new one. We must move in rarefied circles, since when we asked around for a place to watch the recent “debate” no one we asked had broadcast TV. Finally someone told me it was possible to use the computer and see it online from the Philadelphia ABC outlet. I’m part of the sandwich generation, disgusted with the old media, but not yet up to speed on the new.

But on Tuesday, election day in Pennsylvania, I even did the split screen thing, watching both MSNBC.com for election returns and the streaming video of the Berkeley City Council. From time to time, I checked nytimes.com and dailykos.com for high-level interpretations of what was happening in the voting booths.

Kos was right from the beginning, predicting the spread within a fraction of a point. The Times reported on election night that HC had made it into the double digits, but backed down the next day to 9-point-something.

The spin doctor wannabees had been attaching big significance to the number of digits, but when the results came up on the cusp that line of analysis was dropped. Watching them in action on the screen got pretty boring pretty quickly.

The meeting of the Berkeley City Council was more appalling than boring. I’m not enough of a masochist to watch the action there very often, and I’m always sorry when I do. If I hadn’t been sitting in front of the computer anyhow, I would certainly have found better things to do.

The council is now officially launched on its annual round of slam-bam-thank-you-ma’m. Here’s how it works.

For most of the year, they indulge themselves by holding infrequent meetings, seldom just a week apart. They take long, long recesses, and they try to hurry home as early as possible, sometimes after meeting for less than three hours of an evening. But between the end of April and the middle of July their agenda is crammed with all the unfinished business they didn’t get to earlier in year.

The more important a topic is, the more likely it is to be discussed late at night and in a hurry. And when it is discussed it’s rare for anyone but Kriss Worthington and Dona Spring to understand what’s going on.

The history of the long-postponed Sunshine Ordinance is a prime example. I have on my computer the .jpg file of a lovely poster announcing a meeting of anyone interested in getting a sunshine ordinance for Berkeley. The date? September 21, 2002. Back in the olden golden B.P. (before planet) era, when I had time for worthwhile civic pursuits like that.

Now, more than five years and one newspaper later, the city of Berkeley still hasn’t gotten around to doing anything about enacting a sunshine ordinance. And judging by their performance on Tuesday, they might never get around to it.

It’s been a full year since it was brought before the council with much fanfare, part of last year’s mad rush to judgement. When I heard that Mayor Bates had claimed at the recent pre-council agenda meeting that no one had ever asked the citizens’ committee to go forward with drafting an ordinance, I looked at the on-line videos of those ancient meetings, and saw the same kind of confused and disorganized process that happened again on Tuesday. The predictable result is that the right hand didn’t know what the left hand was doing, so the city attorney’s office was drafting away in blissful ignorance of the citizen effort.

By the time of Tuesday’s council meeting, the mayor’s handlers had realized that his announced plan of bulling ahead with the staff draft regardless of what the public wanted was impolitic, and they’d given him a prepared statement backing off. He read it this time (badly), so that he wouldnn’t mess up again.

But he and Councilmember Capitelli still managed to imply that the citizen’s committee had been meeting behind closed doors (at the League of Women Voter’s office!) in order to keep their deliberations a secret. If that’s the case, it’s strange that all year they’ve been emailing reams and reams of in-progress drafts to a long list of recipients, including the Planet.

The very difficult technical issue of how to write an ordinance to deal with anomalies in the way the city of Berkeley’s zoning intersects with the state’s grant of bonuses for dense construction was subjected to similar slapdash proceedings on Tuesday, this time very late in a long evening. It was clear to the viewer that the council, again excepting Spring and Worthington, had absolutely no idea of what they were voting on, or else that they were being remarkably disingenuous.

Capitelli and Maio shed a few crocodile tears about the plight of those whose small homes on small streets back up to big condos on big streets (think Trader Joe), but then they voted for the plan which didn’t protect those same little guys. Olds introduced the stronger committee-drafted version of the ordinance which the Planning Commission supports, but then proceeded to vote against it, possibly by mistake. All in all, it was not an edifying spectacle.

I learned a few lessons from my viewing experiences of the last week. Broadcast television, even the once-respectable ABC, is now all about sensationalism, not about real news, so there’s little point in watching it. On-line reporting has the potential for being better, but, as in the Pennsylvania primary, too many interpreters are often chasing too little data.

And everyone who can stand it should observe a few council meetings between now and the July start of their long summer vacation. This can be done in many ways. Watch on-line, streaming live or afterwards as videos. Listen to broadcasts on KPFB, 89.3 FM. Watch on cable TV, Channel 33, live or recorded for later viewing. Or even attend in person.

If you do that, you’ll soon conclude that Berkeley needs a new City Council made up of people who are willing to meet each and every week to plug away with all deliberate speed at actually getting the people’s business competently accomplished. Where such heros would come from, of course, is another matter for another day.

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PARKING FEES

Editors, Daily Planet:

The proposal for night parking fees is another one of those “punish us until we are green” proposals. Yes, please, charge us more for less. Purify us. Make us sacrifice until we have saved the earth. Tear down parking lots, and make us pay to park on the streets, then complain that there are lines at the lots that haven’t yet been torn down. Everyone pays, except, of course, Code Pink. (But don’t go overboard, by say, increasing public transit, extending the hours of BART or making rides cheaper, faster, and more convenient.)

We don’t need to go out anyway. We will all sit in our homes and read books written on recycled rags illuminated by ecologically correct low wattage light bulbs. After all patronizing downtown business wastes the earth’s resources. We’ve already said Fairfax to the UC, Berkeley, Cinema, and Act I and 2 movie houses. That probably isn’t enough. Now the city is determined to get rid of the UA, California and Shattuck, the last three downtown theaters, in the interest of increasing empty storefronts in the neighborhood. I don’t suppose this will do a world of good for the live theaters, the Rep and Aurora. The Freight and Salvage may want to reconsider moving downtown.

But we, here in Berkeley are all so virtuous. Unfortunately most of the rest of the world will go watch movies in the malls.

Paul Glusman

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MASS GROPINGS

Editors, Daily Planet:

Did the police give the media more of a description than just “young males’? If they did, why wasn’t it printed? Who are we looking for?

Peter Bjeldanes

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‘SECOND HAND ROSE’

Editors, Daily Planet:

Please let Ms. Snodgrass know that the song “Second Hand Rose” was written well before Barbra Streisand was born so she couldn’t have been the inspiration for the song.

Rick Kipp

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SKATE PARK

Editors, Daily Planet:

I read Mr. Woods column about the skate park and yes, maybe it was a disaster (not his words) but it is what we have. I know it and the surrounding playing fields are also heavily used almost everyday and certainly every weekend. Do I ignore the health issues—almost because what else do we have for the hundreds—if not thousands—of kids and adults who use these parks? Nothing. I wish it were otherwise and we had a fields and open space for our kids but we don’t. Any suggestions we can afford Mr. Wood?

Bill Newton

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PARKING PERMITS

Editors, Daily Planet:

Once again, the City of Berkeley has sent out notices for residential preferential parking permits without indicating that persons with low income (under $33,500) are entitled to a half-price discount, from $30 reduced to $15. Proof consisting of income tax forms, a photo ID, and a bill indicating your home address (PG&E or AT&T, etc.) must accompany the application whether in person or by mail. When will the city make it routine to add that information to the notices they send out each year? Are they trying to make money on the backs of poor people?

Estelle Jelinek

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WHY THE OAK GROVE MATTERS

Editors, Daily Planet:

The Memorial Stadium oak grove needs the community to commit to its protection. This struggle is about more than this valuable grove of trees. It is about democracy and the rights of citizens to have a say in their communities. It is about humans evolving to understand that our survival is intertwined with the health of the natural world and it is imperative that we live in accordance with nature. It is about sane, livable neighborhoods and respecting the history of the land and its peoples. It is about saving the headwaters of our watershed from foolish and dire construction.

Dear Strawberry Creek, watershed of the Berkeley campus, who has nourished this land for millennium, calls for our help. There are plans to tear into the future by tearing up these sacred hills. This area declared “An Ecological Study Area,” where live the elderberry and the California towee, the mountain lion and fox, banana slug and sweet cicily, is threatened by plans that we did not vote on.

We must turn the tide of the direction our public university is going. UC should be the front runner in researching how to protect our precious resources and finding alternative sustainable solutions for the public. Instead it is being allowed to run unrestrained and unmonitored into exciting but treacherous technologies without the wisdom of or research into the dangers and downfalls they present. That the nano-technology “molecular foundry” was built without an EIR and runs with little oversight should be alarming to all of us. There are already nano products commercially available without reasonable research into their effects. Highly toxic nano silver is washing out of new nano-socks and into the bay without EBMUD sewage treatment plant operators being aware of it, never mind having the technology to filter it. What effect will this have on the bay and the ocean ecosystems and the bodies of our children?

We must stand now, for life. This is our line in the sand. This grove of oak trees on Strawberry Creek is wiser and more valuable than a foolish building. Oaks are sacred to many peoples. Oak groves represent community, strength and sustenance. They are our elders and teachers. Community has formed around this grove. We have met, many different folks under (and in) these trees, pledging support for their going on.

Hold on, hold on. We shall stand in peace before our elders. To protect them, and to share their wisdom. We shall feel our roots in the land we are on. This struggle is central to our connection to earth and soul. Stand with the trees.

Terri Compost

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UNFATHOMABLE

Editors, Daily Planet:

My recent observations in South Berkeley only proved to me my suspicion that the leadership in the City of Berkeley makes Bush and Cheney seem like innocent, wayward choirboys.

It seems obvious to me that by authorizing a drug paraphernalia outlet on Ashby Avenue in South Berkeley that the City Council is blatantly pandering to their drug-dealing friends. How is this different than the politics of oil? Let’s just tell it like it is.

I, personally, do not care if people use if they do in a safe and responsible way. What bothers me is the obvious cynicism, corruption, deliberate and blatant neglect leveled on our SouthSide neighborhood by the shortsighted, misanthropic leadership of the City of Berkeley.

One wonders why the city could not support the arrival of, say, a noodle shop, or a bread bakery, or even, perhaps, an establishment that served a tolerable cup of coffee…or at least some establishment that served the whole neighborhood.

John Herbert

•

IHSS IN TURMOIL

Editors, Daily Planet:

Since 1994, I have been on the In-Home Supportive Services program (IHSS) that pays for my overnight care as a result of my physical disability, Cerebral Palsy. For over nine years my IHSS was active in Alameda County.

In 2004, 10 years later, I transferred my case to San Francisco. In November of 2007, my fiancée and I moved back into Alameda County where I was told my IHSS would be transferred back to and until this took place San Francisco would pay for my IHSS.

As of March 31, San Francisco IHSS—after much delay—would not be involved anymore and Alameda would take over effective April 1st. However, I did not see an intake worker until April 14th and as of yet my case is still pending.

My workers have not been paid for a month and I was informed on May 1 that the client rights advocate for IHSS had turned my case over to the director of IHSS who I have been unable to get a hold of. In the IHSS telephone information system, my case has been pending since Nov. 20 and my providers are average people who are proud of what they do for me and they deserve to get paid. If I do not receive my IHSS payment soon, one of my attendants who has been with me for 10 years will be forced to go on unemployment and the other will be forced to look elsewhere for work.

I have spoken to my intake worker once and the client rights advocate on several occasions. After the home visit where I was assessed, I was told that IHSS would enter my information into their system and that my workers would be paid very soon. I wonder how a government agency can get so backed up and so discombobulated that it puts people like me at risk of not being able to do my activities of daily living at risk for bedsores, health and safety issues along with losing great In-Home care attendants who know and understand the severity of my condition. If IHSS is not operating effectively then why do my workers have to go without pay?

Nick Feldman

•

SHAME ON THE CITY OF BERKELEY

Editors, Daily Planet:

It’s almost two months since the March 11 “protest” against the Marine Recruiting Station, and, although the discussion in this and other papers’ letters to the editor sections at the time were full of vitriol, they have faded from the public purview. All is forgotten, all is forgiven?

Not quite. The City Council still has a lot to answer to. They are public servants, and not only is it unacceptable for them to make grand (and empty) ideological gestures without public discussion, it is reprehensible and irresponsible that they apparently never took into consideration the consequences of their vote to “unwelcome” the Marine Recruiting Station.

To make a bad situation worse, they sponsored the “protest” and offered the park directly across from Berkeley High as the venue...on a school day! In case nobody was looking (or asking) this park is really an extension of BHS on school days. And as anyone who has been there at 3:15 can attest, there are kids all over the park and the adjacent streets at that time. Exactly the time that the “protest” was gathering steam. This was already a recipe for trouble. But it doesn’t end there. There were many busloads of pro-war demonstrators already gunning for a fight—men, mostly, who had been ramping up their generalized anger for some hours. They now only needed to focus that anger. Who better to focus it on than kids—that category of being that is really without voice or power. So, the adults began to taunt and threaten the kids as they came out of school and tried to skate at the ledges.

Not to worry, the City Council again had apparently decided on the best plan of action. A full wall of Berkeley Police in riot gear (whose overtime pay cost the city $93,000). These police, however, rather than protect the kids, arrested them.

It was the kids, not the adults, who were arrested. The kids, they say, who were threatening. What, kids just randomly being threatening?

Now, there are some who have not forgotten March 11. They now have records, and have to do public service.

Where is the City Council now? Why did they not for see the severe consequences of the actions they put into play? Why do they not ameliorate the damages by interceding on behalf of those kids so unfairly arrested? The City Council prefers to play in the realm of ideological gestures, not realizing that their “moral high grounding” has had truly violent repercussions on the lives of innocent kids.

Dr. JoAnn Conrad

•

ROBBERIES COMMON IN BERKELEY HILLS

Editors, Daily Planet:

I have been disturbed by the recent reports that armed sidewalk robberies are becoming the norm in the Berkeley hills, especially in the neighborhood surrounding the Graduate Theological Union (GTU). But anyone who has lived or studied there full well knows that people in and around the GTU have been, for years, assaulted by the so called, Margaret Hamilton-like “Berkeley Parking Authority,” whose amply-provided force has assured that even the most minor infraction is duly fined with the infamous $30.00 parking ticket. (As a side note, I am amazed that a city like Berkeley allows for such abuse, and that nobody has organized a city-wide demonstration so far.) At my friend’s place on Oxford street, scores of tow trucks and meter-maid-mobiles line up daily at 3:40 p.m. to begin towing cars parked in a no parking zone beginning at 4:00 (towing at 4:01). It’s not clear why the zone converts to “no parking” as, unlike other cities, a new lane does not open up. It’s just another example of the predatory behavior that extracts dollars from citizen’s pockets.

I find it ironic, but not surprising, that Berkeley can amply staff their minion of parking ticketers, while failing to provide the necessary police coverage that prevents rogue, armed bandits from roaming peaceful neighborhoods and robbing people like seminarians and monks of their meager wages. But then again, the “Parking Authority” has been doing so for years.

Once again we see where the city of Berkeley’s concerns lay.

Rev. John Handley

PhD Student, Graduate Theological Union

Fairfax (Marin County)

•

BUS RAPID TRANSIT

Editors, Daily Planet:

Bruce Wicinas writes that Berkeley should not passively accept the design that AC Transit proposes for Bus Rapid Transit, that a local landscape architect has already produced several alternative designs with exciting new possibilities, that AC needs Berkeley’s help to design a scheme that preserves the downtown environment.

I agree completely, but I am puzzled by Wicinas’ claim that Alan Tobey suggested otherwise. Tobey’s earlier letter simply said that the city has adopted a general policy favoring BRT with exclusive bus lanes on Telegraph Avenue, by unanimous vote of all the councilmembers and of then-mayor Shirley Dean. He never suggested that the city has endorsed a final design. In fact, there is not yet a final design or even a final route proposed for BRT in south campus and downtown. After the Planning Commission chooses a preferred alternative for the route, we can begin to develop a final design for that preferred alternative. At that point, I think it would invaluable to have the sort of collaborative design process that Wicinas suggests to develop the detailed design that is best for Berkeley.

BRT is being adopted by cities around the nation and the world because it is the most cost-effective method of providing better public transportation. Chicago has just approved a BRT plan for that reason - one more major city adopting BRT since my last letter to the Planet. BRT can have the same transportation benefits in Berkeley that it has in other cities, and with the sort of design that Wicinas writes about, it can also give us a more pedestrian-friendly, vital, and economically successful downtown.

Charles Siegel

•

THAI TEMPLE

Editors, Daily Planet:

A bad case of NYMBYitis has infected the neighbors of Berkeley’s Mongkolratanaram Thai Temple.

One neighbor’s reportedly said “I have no complaints. I’d rather have them than Section 8 housing.” What a bigoted thing to say. I guess he doesn’t want “those kind” in Berkeley.

As the president of a non-profit that has low-income apartment project for seniors and the disabled on the Monterey Peninsula, I can truthfully say our Section 8 residents are the best. No wild parties or gang-bangers there.

Larry Hawkins

Seaside

•

NO NEW TAXES

Editors, Daily Planet:

A preliminary review of the City of Berkeley-commissioned Berkeley Voter Survey, geared to elicit positive responses to potential new tax measures, indicates scant local appetite for new taxes. So I hope that Berkeley city officials drop that subject and move on to what voters really seem to want, according to the poll—better city revenue management. In these hard times, the city needs to cut city expenses (fewer staff, recession of new contracts if necessary, fewer bells and whistle programs, fewer developer subsidies) and re-prioritize city spending into what residents really want—effective public safety above all.

A recent article on Berkeley home foreclosures indicates more than 200 homes in the foreclosure system. Prices are declining. It may get much worse before it gets better.

There is a wealth of important census-type data embedded in the Berkeley Voter Survey and the city should engage an independent statistician to put it all together in a useful format. Just two examples of many—there is data on the modest income level of most Berkeley homeowners (average looks about $100,000) and there is evidence that about half of residents with children are not using Berkeley public schools!

So instead of thinking of ways to increase the local tax burden, city and school officials need to engage in a Reality Check on the Real World.

Barbara Gilbert

•

DECEPTIVE MEASURE

Editors, Daily Planet:

On June 3, you will be asked to vote on measure F which re-authorizes, increases, and extends the utility users tax in the unincorporated parts of Alameda County. Many of you reading this live in cities and won’t have to pay the tax and will derive no benefits from it. So, why are you being asked to vote to tax someone else? Because the County Board of Supervisors thinks the tax is more likely to pass if voted on countywide.

The supervisors could have legally restricted the vote to those of us who will pay the tax (10 percent of the county population) but they don’t trust us to pass it. This is unfair, and the supervisors know it.

The measure is also deceptively worded. The supporters promise to spend the money on libraries, sheriff and planning, but the legally binding language of the measure (the fine print) says “ There is no legal obligation that the funds be used for any particular purpose.” This is dishonest. Welcome to politics, Alameda County-style.

Please vote no on F, and make the supervisors create a special district so that we in the unincorporated areas can vote on our own taxes and services.

Steve Rosenberg

Castro Valley

•

UNHOLY ALLIANCE

Editors, Daily Planet:

We, the people of Berkeley, should propose a citizen-initiated proposal to end the unholy alliance between the developers and some of the councilmembers.

This proposal should say, “If a councilmember has accepted money from a business or individual, either directly or indirectly, then he must recuse himself when a matter that would benefit that entity comes before the City Council.”

What is happening is that many developers have purchased some of the councilmembers through generous campaign contributions. Developers themselves, their key employees and their family members contribute “bribes” to the councilmembers campaign funds. In turn, those dishonest councilmembers vote positively on their requests to the city council, instead of recusing themselves.

Legally, the city council often decides these proposals in a “quasi-judicial” capacity. And they should recuse themselves from voting when a matter comes up, but many dishonest councilmembers don’t.

When these dishonest councilmembers vote, they vote to give money to those developers who have purchased those councilmembers. They vote to given the developers money from the low-interest loan-fund, outright grants, zoning change and other goodies that spell M-O-N-E-Y.

Sometime ago. Councilmember Gordon Woziak wrote an article on www.KitchenDemocracy.com expressing his opinion on a permit proposal before the city council. At that time, the then city attorney Manuela Albuquerque advised him to recuse when that matter comes before the city council. And he did recuse. Manuela’s argument was that since the councilmembers are acting in a “quasi-judicial” capacity when deciding on such matters, they must be totally impartial.

At that time, I asked Manuela, “By your logic, councilmembers should also recuse when they accept money from a developer and a matter that gives money to that developer comes before the city council.” Manuela had answered that the Supreme Court had decided that it would not be conflict of interest.

But still the citizens can put forth an initiative that bans such dishonest conduct be councilmembers. So lets discuss this matter publicly and pass such an initiative.

Irshad Alam

•

THE COST OF OIL

Editors, Daily Planet:

As the rising cost of oil continues to punish the consuming population, it is odd that the issue of nationalizing the U.S. oil majors seldom comes up. As a practicing geologist I think that nationalization needs to be put on the agenda.

The U.S. oil majors apparently decided to drive the market as high as possible, short of some psycho-social breaking point due to widespread fraud and petty theft (eg. gas tank siphoning). The OPEC decision to resist U.S. pressure to expand oil extraction, declared that the high prices are a result of U.S. economic mismanagement. The United States is understandably coy—the secretary of state is a former member of the Chevron board of directors. (Senator Biden defended Chevron against China’s higher bid for Unocal).

Consider the consequences of not nationalizing U.S. oil majors. To take one familiar example, Chevron, teaming with (the French oil company) Total, for a Basra oil field, defends the occupation (expecting the U.S. oil majors to get Iraq oil deals out of the Iraqi congress; a prospect abhorrent to the Iraqi population). Chevron’s bloating from recent acquisitions of Texaco and Unocal, only increases its “corporate bullying”; in the Unocal purchase for example Chevron’s CEO O’Reilly claimed at the end of 2005-06, that to buy Unocal, it was necessary that gas prices, around $2 a gallon at the time, needed to rise to $3 a gallon to finance the deal.

The U.S. oil majors have been predicting imminent shortages of oil ever since the 1920s to keep gasoline prices high; (crude in the 1970s was “coming out of our ears”—said USGS Director McKelvey in 1978 before President Carter removed him). These days O’Reilly claims scarcity really is here (his “peak oil” scenario, also disputed by the USGS). The truth may be that the North American land mass, in oil shale, has an oil supply sufficient for centuries. If runaway global warming interferes with the familiar glacial/interglacial cycles it will likely be due to oil abundance.

So I believe an effort should be made to nationalize the U.S. oil majors, with the aim of making oil available in a timely, efficient and predictable fashion.

Fred Hayden

Albany

•

REQUEST FOR RSS FEED

Editors, Daily Planet:

While I’m looking forward to daily updates from the Daily Planet online, please consider adding an RSS feed to your site to make it easier to keep up with the news and opinion.

Scott Mace

•

PARKING METERS

Editors, Daily Planet:

Reading the item on extending parking meter pay windows to 10 p.m. (“Evening Meter Use Draws Critics”) just makes me more determined to avoid shopping or any other activity involving driving, or not, in Berkeley.

I actually walk a lot in Berkeley, and have (and will again) use a bike here, but I hate with a passion the blatant greed manifested by the Berkeley city government in using parking fees to fatten their bottom line.

Presently, the “meter maids” issue tickets right up to the stroke of 6 p.m., and now have computer assistance to keep them aware of soon-to-expire parking times on those newer computerized meters. Add to that sliding-scale parking rates and extended enforcement hours and you have a recipe for “Welcome to Albany!”

Marshall Stax

•

BRT, WE ARE TOLD,

IS A ‘DONE DEAL’

Editors, Daily Planet:

In a recent letter Alan Tobey argues “BRT was approved by the City Council in 2001. Top bureaucrats, advocacy organizations and city policy endorse it. It’s a done deal. Stop raising questions.”

In 2001 there was no design. I am sure everyone imagined something better than the rather crude scheme which AC began circulating in 2005. City “policy,” co-authored by outspoken automobile-denying zealot citizens, endorsed BRT sight-unseen. BRT is not a concept that may be endorsed in principle, like recycling. It is infrastructure. Its design is a vital consideration.

In 2005 AC Transit energetically showed early plans to whoever would pay attention. Concerned about its potentially devastating impact on the downtown pedestrian environment, a local landscape architect sat down with tracing paper, scale and plans of downtown. In a few hours he produced several alternate deployment schemes for downtown. These showed exciting possibilities, none of them embodied are contained in AC’s plans. They also demonstrated that AC’s “design” is nothing more than a concept diagram. This was the origin of my conviction and my activism on this issue. At the time, Berkeley city officials admitted off the record, “yeah, the city needs to do that stuff.” But the city hasn’t.

And if we say “whatever you wish” to these plans as Mr. Tobey urges—giving cover to the City Council to “approve”—there is no incentive for the city to do it.

AC Transit planners are engineers, not designers, as they frankly declare. Moreover, AC Transit has never attempted the design of a mass transit system, with dedicated lanes, stations and platforms. AC Transit is not a landscape architecture firm. It has no smarts about preserving viability of local business. Its computer models to predict what will happen to the cars cannot fully predict human adaptive behavior. AC Transit needs help with this. And the help has to originate in each locale even though the cities don’t have AC Transit’s design budget. AC Transit can’t help but thrash round clumsily in our downtown and on our Telegraph Avenue. It needs to partner with design consultants who are working for and accountable to Berkeley. In collaboration, AC Transit and our people need to author schemes which preserve the downtown pedestrian environment, avoids killing off Telegraph and Shattuck Avenue businesses, and adequately provides for car and bicycle traffic on Telegraph. Omitting this vital step is unthinkable.

Do you think it will happen if we are silent, giving it premature endorsement?

Bruce Wicinas

•

LET’S NOT BE FOOLED

BY RAPID BLUS PLUS

Editors, Daily Planet:

Opponents of Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) for Telegraph Avenue and downtown have been proposing an alternative they claim to be “just as good, cheaper, and without the negative impacts” of BRT. They call this “Rapid Bus Plus,” and propose it as an improvement on today’s “regular” 1R Rapid Bus service through the addition of a proof-of-payment (POP) ticketing system and “bulbouts” (sidewalk widenings) at the stops. “Rapid Bus Plus” stops short of BRT by omitting dedicated lanes for the service, a feature which is critical to creating a transit system that can compete with the private automobile in speed, efficiency, and reliability.

The term “Rapid Bus Plus” is an ad hoc term created by Berkeleyans for Better Transit Options (BBTOP), a citizens’ group opposed to BRT with dedicated lanes on Telegraph Avenue. A Google search for “Rapid Bus Plus” comes up with links to Berkeley or the AC Transit BRT proposal—and nothing else.

This confirms the truth: Rapid Bus Plus is a diversion created by BRT opponents and is never among the well-studied options considered by transit professionals. In contrast, more than 25 US cities have already implemented or are in the process of implementing a full BRT project that includes dedicated lanes to keep buses from being entangled in ordinary traffic.

If any city anywhere is implementing Rapid Bus Plus, we would welcome the information so that we can all learn from the experience.

Len Conly

•

A PROPOSAL

Editors, Daily Planet:

I think the proposal to generate additional revenue by charging for parking at meters in downtown Berkeley during nighttime hours is very short sighted. First of all, this will be the death knoll for many downtown businesses, including restaurants and movie theaters. It is already difficult to park in downtown Berkeley. I, as well as many people I know, avoid this area “like a plague,” whenever possible, when there are so many other options for restaurant dining and movie viewing, that have free and accessible parking nearby. This is also a negative way to generate revenue. It will make people angry, will reduce the nighttime visitors to this area, and have a negative impact on businesses that stay open during evening hours.

Instead, why not put a positive spin on gaining additional income by making it fun as well as profitable? For example, how about creating the first ever annual Traffic Circle Design Contest? The city could ask local businesses to donate prizes such as a dinner for two, or a pair of movie tickets to downtown businesses.

Prizes could run the gamut from:

1. Best Dressed Traffic Circle.

2. Most Creative Design.

3. Most Imaginative.

4. Most Colorful.

5. Greenest.

6. And so forth.

You could charge individuals and block associations, let’s say, $10, per category, per submission, and encourage them to submit as many ideas and or existing designs or photos for each category to be included in the competition.

This will be followed up by the judging of the ideas and designs and then the first ever, Traffic Circle Annual Awards Ceremony, to be held in MLK Park, on a Saturday afternoon, next to the Farmers Market. Now, wouldn’t that be fun? And generate revenue? And make people excited about donating money to the City of Berkeley?

Chandra Hauptman

•

IN DEFENSE OF

BICYCLE TRAILERS

Editors, Daily Planet:

What a difference in perspective! Amanda Duisman (Letters, April 22) wants to ban bicycle trailers because she thinks they are unsafe for small children, while I bought one, in part, because I thought it would be safer than carrying a child on the back of my bike. I will not try to convince her of this here, as I am afraid she will then just want to ban both.

If we ban activities for people’s own good, where do we stop? Baby strollers? Kids on bikes? Pedestrians?

Do we ignore social justice? Not everybody owns a car. What about the health aspects of exercise? Driven everywhere, our kids become obese, and are prone to early onset diabetes and heart problems.

Most motor vehicles have safety systems, but nonetheless, 87 percent of people killed by motor vehicles are occupants of the vehicles themselves, while less than 2 percent of those killed are cyclists. Increasing the number of cyclists (or even pedestrians) by a little bit will increase their exposure to cars, but if you increase their number enough to significantly decrease vehicular traffic it should actually reduce the total number of fatalities.

I have saved the perhaps most significant issue for last. Motor vehicles are major contributors to global climate change. What value is the supposed safety of transporting our children by car if by doing so we destroy the future for their children?

Robert Clear

•

ALSO IN DEFENSE OF

BICYCLE TRAILERS

Editors, Daily Planet:

Dear me. Let me see if I get this straight. Having a child wear a helmet, or putting a flag on your bike trailer, proves that you know it’s dangerous to take the kid with you. By this logic, shouldn’t those of us who used child seats before the law required them have kept our children out of cars altogether, since we evidently were aware of the risks? One in 100 Americans dies in an auto accident, but no one suggests that children should not be transported in cars.

What the odds are for a child in a bike cart is hard to determine, since there aren’t that many out there as yet, but I imagine parents bike more carefully than most people, which is to say that they probably have fewer accidents than average. (Could be that’s also true of parents driving cars.)

Like the writers, I am old enough to be a grandmother, though so far not lucky enough. Over 25 years ago, I was hauling my kids by bicycle cart, and we all lived to tell the tale. They said they enjoyed riding with me on errands and to daycare. If they were traumatized, it’s had an odd result—both are bike riders, and our daughter is a part owner of Pedal Express, Berkeley’s bike messenger service. Should she ever bless us with a descendent, I hope and expect she’ll bring the child to visit us by bicycle.

I don’t mean to minimize the danger to children from cars. But that danger peaks when, inevitably, they get old enough to walk, bike, and eventually drive, without adult supervision. The way to improve their odds is to crack down on speeding, red light running, and violations of pedestrian right-of-way.

Ann Sieck

•

STILL MORE IN DEFENSE OF

BICYCLE TRAILERS

Editors, Daily Planet:

I just wanted to comment on the child safety concerns raised about bicycle trailers. A previous letter objected to these trailers and favored child seats that can be mounted on the bicycle. While there isn’t a perfect, 100 percent risk-proof way to carry a child with you on a bicycle ride (any more than in a car), I believe that under most circumstances a trailer is safer than a mounted seat.

When a seat is mounted on the bike, it affects the center of gravity of the bike, and makes it less stable and more difficult to control. If the worst happens, and the bicycle falls over, the child will go with it—and have no protection from the road, or other obstacles he or she might fall into.

A trailer, on the other hand, is stable independent of the bike. It doesn’t affect the center of gravity, and minimally affects the handling of the bike. If the bicycle and rider fall over, many trailers will not—they are attached by a pivot specifically to guard against flipping over. They also have a seatbelt and a structure that protect the child if anything does hit the trailer.

For this reason, I have felt comfortable taking my four-month-old with us on bicycle outings in his trailer. Because he’s so little, to give him added protection and to make sure his head doesn’t get jostled too much, I have used his car seat inside the trailer. We don’t take him into heavy traffic: most of Shattuck Avenue is definitely not a very safe route for bikes with kid trailers, just because there are so many cars—but there are lots of “bicycle boulevards” and less-crowded roads to use instead.

Bad things can happen to kids, no doubt about that, but he’s safer in that trailer than he would be out of it.

Gabriella Raymond

•

CHANGE IN FORMAT

Editors, Daily Planet:

The newspaper business is failing as I well know from personal experience. I had a management position at the largest chain around here that ended a year ago. Frankly, the great majority of newspapers do not deserve to survive. They all take their editorial cues from the gray New York Times, now in serious trouble itself. You can predict their views on everything from guns to climate change with your eyes closed.

Which brings me to the Berkeley Daily Planet’s alleged reason for cutting back. Let’s drop all the greening nonsense. By that logic no one should ever publish anything because that would save all the trees. No one should ever use any resources because that is interfering with our “limited” supply ! That these resources sat unused for thousands of years while people were starving to death goes unmentioned. The liberal left has become a giant nanny scold crying “Doom !” all the time. Every pleasure from drinking to smoking to hunting to driving is now the enemy and we should all wear a hairshirt in perpetuity for “nature” and the backward regions of the planet.

I bet the Daily Planet is cutting back for financial reasons. Now if anyone can verify the rumor that KPFA is cutting airtime 50 percent to lessen airwaves pollution that would be nice.

Michael P. Hardesty

Oakland

•

APPLE MOTH SPRAYING

Editors, Daily Planet:

Now that the powers that be (a Santa Clara County Superior Court judge and the Schwarzenegger Administration) have agreed to temporarily suspend the threatened aerial spraying of pesticide gas over much of the Bay Area in an attempt to sexually harass a small brown moth, we need to force a complete and final end to this insane plan.

The incompetent Bush administration has been wrong about almost everything in the last seven years; why does anyone in their right mind possibly think that they would be right about a supposed big threat posed by the presence of the light brown apple moth (Epiphyas postvittana)?

American apple growers originally lobbied the federal United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) to classify this small moth as a big threat to their crops as a way of cutting down on competition from New Zealand apple exporters. It worked for a few years, and forced the New Zealand apple growers to undertake unnecessary and toxic sprayings of their orchards. This moth has been living in New Zealand for about a century and is considered to be a minor agricultural pest there.

This moth, a native to Australia, has also lived in New Caledonia, Hawai’i and England for many years. These areas are still green and agriculturally productive. The residents and the farmers of Australia, New Zealand, New Caledonia, Hawai’i and England have managed to co-exist with this moth without having to resort to the aerial pesticide spraying of entire cities and towns.

But now that this moth has been discovered in California, other countries can and are demanding that this state take steps to eliminate the presence of the moth. So the discovered presence of the Apple Moth is a threat to the potential export profits of American apple growing corporations, it is not an actual threat to the growing of the apples. Hoisted on their own petard! Just agribusiness corporate greed coming home to roost, so to speak.

A quick search of the Internet will reveal that the supposed presence of agricultural insect pests is the basis of many ongoing trade battles and trade wars between different food-producing countries and food-consuming nations. This brown apple moth brouhaha is just the latest conflict to appear recently in our California news media as a major story. Our apple farmers and our state and federal agricultural experts need to consult with apple growers in New Zealand and Australia and find some low-key biological controls as a remedy for the presence of the moth. The USDA should rejoin the real world and immediately downgrade this bogus threat level posed by the presence of this moth.

Please write letters to your City Council representatives, your County supervisors, your State representatives and your Federal representatives and tell them “no” to any aerial spraying of pesticides or any other poison gases in the Bay Area.

James K. Sayre

Oakland

•

FRANKENNEGGER HAIKU

Editors, Daily Planet:

i shall close your schools;

then you invent more machines

to teach your children.

Arnie Passman

•

ABU GHRAIB: FOUR YEARS AND NOTHING HAS CHANGED

Editors, Daily Planet:

It has been four years since we learned of the torture at Abu Ghraib and our government still has not acted to restore America’s honor by unequivocally banning torture and other forms of cruel treatment.

I encourage anyone who does not believe that the Bush Administration did not orchestrate the torture techniques to read Philip Zimbardo’s “The Lucifer Effect.” Zimbardo did an experiment back in 1971 with Stanford students that emulated what happens when they are divided up into prisoners and guards and given very little guidance. The result: what he calls a “ ‘perfect storm’ which leads good people to engage in evil actions.”

Zimbardo testified at one of the court-martials that it is the system of vague rules, implicit approval and assured immunity that led to the abuse of prisoners. (His testimony was later dismissed.) While the actual acts were perpetrated by individuals, the authority structure was intentionally designed to allow such abuses to occur. The resulting abuse has been not only harmful to the prisoners but also the guards has led us “moral” outsiders to erroneously characterize them both as “monsters.”

This complete disregard for a person’s humanity, that of the prisoner as well as our troops acting as guards, goes against treating humans with dignity and respect. We have flouted the Geneva Convention to the detriment of our own captured troops, but also to our souls as human beings.

Mr. Bush has all but left the car on cruise control as he speeds his way to whatever is next for him after his term is over. It’s up to the next president to restore America’s moral authority. The next president must swear off the use of torture by any and all U.S. agencies, order a complete investigation into this system of abuse, and establish clear guidelines of interrogation. We will not only be attempting to restore the humanity of those we incarcerate, but also our own humanity.

Both are at stake.

Evans McGowan

San Anselmo

•

RODEOS

Editors, Daily Planet:

The Red Bluff Round-up dodged a serious bullet on April 20 when a rodeo bull, “Blue Steel,” jumped an eight-foot fence into the audience, injuring six people in the process, three of them children. It’s a miracle that no one was killed. The story made the national news.

But simply to say that this was an unavoidable “fluke” begs the issue, and rodeos around the country are setting themselves up for tragedies and lawsuits if they don’t do something to prevent such occurrences in the future. I’m reminded of the recent incident at the San Francisco Zoo when a tiger jumped a 15-foot moat and wall, and killed a zoo visitor. That, too, could be considered a “fluke,” yet zoos around the country, indeed world, immediately took a hard look at their public and animal safety policies and requirements, and changes were made.

The rodeo community needs to follow suit for the protection of both the fans and the animals. Is there any sort of national standard for rodeo arenas? Should there be a 9-foot minimum fence requirement at all arenas, for instance? It’s time for various state legislatures to take a look at this issue.

All California legislators may be written in care of the State Capitol, Sacramento, CA 95814.

Eric Mills, coordinator

Action for Animals

Oakland

•

SOFT TOUCH

Editors, Daily Planet:

My advice to Dorothy Snodgrass (Letters, April 25): Don’t be a soft touch. I also hate finding more address labels in my mail. My response: I refuse to give money to any organization that sends me labels or offers any kind of “free prize” in return for my donation. And I tell them so by sending a note in their return envelope, pointing out that they’re wasting money that should be going to their cause, and further that the adhesive labels cannot be recycled like other paper.

Jerry Landis

•

MEDIA AND THE ELECTION

Editors, Daily Planet:

I am really angry at both the Democratic and Republican parties for allowing the media to select our presidential candidates. Where is their spine? How dare they allow the media to decide who to include and exclude in the debates, and to set up the questions and the formats! The parties should have acted to prevent this. And I think this is not the first election that this has happened—the media chose Kerry last time.

I am not a conspiracy theorist, but I do believe that there are a lot of corrupt people out there who will to anything to attain power. They will corrupt our voting machines (Ohio), corrupt voter lists (Florida), corrupt the caucus process (Iowa), and corrupt media coverage (think Edwards and Kucinich).

Who is protecting the democratic process? Maybe we need foreign observers like other countries? A U.N. presence? We certainly live in strange times.

Margot Smith

•

HEAL THE ANGER

Editors, Daily Planet:

I wonder if we can find a way to heal the anger of students who scrawl graffiti on school walls. I know the students feel frustrated. Some of the frustration comes from the discipline necessary in any place of education. But some of the frustration comes from a curriculum which is not adapted for low achievers. The curriculum for low achievers should develop those skills which can make students economically self-sufficient. At the same time teachers and counselors should be encouraged to identify non-academic talents of students which are worthy of praise.

We may need to find new learning streams for low achievers. So that their frustration doesn’t keep mounting.

Romila Khanna

Albany

•

PEJORATIVE

Editors, Daily Planet:

The right wing keeps accusing the media of liberal bias. Talk about overkill! The right has managed to make “liberal” equate with socialist. (It is the liberals who gave us Social Security, Medicare, and unemployment insurance.) Have you noticed that “reactionary” has somehow faded away? There are only conservatives now. I suggest that some of today’s “conservatives” are out and out “reactionaries”! It is only in our country that “liberal” and “socialist” are pejorative. In all other developed countries both are accepted political beliefs.

I haven’t seen much questioning of this overkill by the press. “Liberal”?

Harry Gans

•

YES, LET’S ALL HELP DESIGN

AN OPTIMAL BRT SYSTEM

Editors, Daily Planet:

Bruce Wichias wrote to decry my letter mentioning the existence of an existing 2001 City Council resolution in favor of a dedicated-lane Bus Rapid Transit system. He said my position was being equivalent to giving AC Transit a “whatever you wish” carte blanche, He said that, in contrast, “AC Transit needs help with this.”

I completely agree with Mr. Wichias’ position about the need for help, and did not intend to say that no further attention is needed. The BRT project in Berkeley is not yet sufficiently designed or planned for us to know at this point precisely how it would work. Choice among the proposed alternatives is crucial, and any final set of choices on routing, stations, lane alignments, etc., will need a great deal of further study before we can give the project a go-ahead. But that’s exactly why we are now taking the next step: choosing the “local preferred alternative” that will be the main scenario for the completion of the environmental review process.

Where I disagree is with the position of opponents (primarily associated with change-averse southside neighborhood groups) who wish to kill the project before studying it—by choosing instead a “no build” alternative now. Instead of the BRT project, they are pushing a fantasy called “Rapid Bus Plus”—an ad hoc configuration invented by neighborhood activists rather than designed by transit professionals.

We should reject this “verdict first, evidence second” sabotage and support giving this important BRT project the complete and thorough study it deserves, via a vigorous “build” scenario that both the community and AC Transit can work on together for the benefit of all.

Alan Tobey

•

MRS. BENTLEY

Editors, Daily Planet:

Thanks for the brief mention (April 1 edition) of the inimitable Mrs. Bentley and her bursting-at-the-seams shop of leotards, leggings and tights. (Although I’m trying to be gracious when described as an “old timer.”) Through the voluptuous ‘60s I abandoned all restraints, but when I eventually felt the need for a more uplifting experience, I went to Bentley’s and was assessed and assisted by the highest authority herself. (And yes, she really did scrutinize everyone coming and going.)

Mrs. Bentley steered me to one of the minute fitting rooms, had me bend forward from the waist, cupped my breasts in her two hands and firmly pronounced “34C!” I hope there will be room in the “new” downtown for at least a few how-Berkeley-can-you-be individuals like her.

Susan Leonard

•

GAZA

Editors, Daily Planet:

There’s a news blackout in the United States about the siege of Gaza.

Since 2006, Israel has controlled the flow of goods, food, fuel, access to health care, and freedom of movement of all 1.5 million Palestinians in the Gaza Strip. In the past four months, Israel has intensified this siege by reducing imports of food and medicine to a trickle. Despite the lack of clean water for the people of Gaza to drink, Israel bars the delivery of water filters. Half of the people of Gaza are children under the age of 18. Growing up in this environment, they must be “shocked by the miserable things” they see, as UN humanitarian affairs official John Holmes said he was. Holmes also blamed the siege for the collapse of Gaza’s economy, which has left 80 percent of the population dependent on international food aid.

Since 2000, more than 2,680 Palestinians in Gaza have been killed by Israeli violence. While Palestinian militants have been illegally firing rockets into southern Israel, killing 11 people since 2000, collective punishment of the Palestinians by Israel will neither bring about an end to the rockets, improve security of ordinary Israelis, nor open the path to a viable and just peace. Water filters, food, medicine, and clean drinking water in the hands of Gazans are not security threats.

The United States, which provides Israel with the economic, military, and diplomatic support that makes Israel’s history of violating the humans rights of Gazans possible, has a moral responsibility to use its influence to stop Israel’s siege of the Gazan people. Instead, it is currently pursuing a policy of fomenting civil war in Gaza, as recently revealed by a groundbreaking report in Vanity Fair.

Anne White

Alameda

Posted Mon., April 28

•

BRT, WE ARE TOLD, IS A ‘DONE DEAL’

Editors, Daily Planet:

In a recent letter Alan Tobey argues “BRT was approved by the City Council in 2001. Top bureaucrats, advocacy organizations and city policy endorse it. It’s a done deal. Stop raising questions.”

In 2001 there was no design. I am sure everyone imagined something better than the rather crude scheme which AC began circulating in 2005. City “policy,” co-authored by outspoken automobile-denying zealot citizens, endorses BRT sight-unseen. BRT is not a concept that may be endorsed in principle, like recycling. It is infrastructure. Its design is a vital consideration.

In 2005 AC Transit energetically showed early plans to whoever would pay attention. Concerned about its potentially devastating impact on the downtown pedestrian environment, a local landscape architect sat down with tracing paper, scale and plans of downtown. In a few hours he produced several alternate deployment schemes for downtown. These showed exciting possibilities, none of embodied are contained in AC’s plans. They also demonstrated that AC’s “design” is nothing more than a concept diagram. This was the origin of my conviction and my activism on this issue. At the time, Berkeley city officials admitted off the record, “yeah, the city needs to do that stuff.” But the city hasn’t.

And if we say “whatever you wish” to these plans as Mr. Tobey urges—giving cover to the City Council to “approve”—there is no incentive for the city to do it.

AC Transit planners are engineers, not designers, as they frankly declare. Moreover, AC Transit has never attempted the design of a mass transit system, with dedicated lanes, stations and platforms. AC Transit is not a landscape architecture firm. It has no smarts about preserving viability of local business. Its computer models to predict what will happen to the cars cannot fully predict human adaptive behavior. AC Transit needs help with this. And the help has to originate in each locale even though the cities don’t have AC Transit’s design budget. AC Transit can’t help but thrash round clumsily in our downtown and on our Telegraph Avenue. It needs to partner with design consultants who are working for and accountable to Berkeley. In collaboration, AC Transit and our people need to author schemes which preserve the downtown pedestrian environment, avoids killing off Telegraph and Shattuck Avenue businesses, and adequately provides for car and bicycle traffic on Telegraph. Omitting this vital step is unthinkable.

Do you think it will happen if we are silent, giving it premature endorsement?

Bruce Wicinas

Berkeley citizen

•

LET’S NOT BE FOOLED BY RAPID BUS PLUS

Editors, Daily Planet:

Opponents of Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) for Telegraph Avenue and downtown have been proposing an alternative they claim to be “just as good, cheaper, and without the negative impacts” of BRT. They call this “Rapid Bus Plus,” and propose it as an improvement on today’s “regular” 1R Rapid Bus service through the addition of a proof-of-payment (POP) ticketing system and “bulbouts” (sidewalk widenings) at the stops. “Rapid Bus Plus” stops short of BRT by omitting dedicated lanes for the service, a feature which is critical to creating a transit system that can compete with the private automobile in speed, efficiency, and reliability.

The term “Rapid Bus Plus” is an ad hoc term created by Berkeleyans for Better Transit Options (BBTOP), a citizens’ group opposed to BRT with dedicated lanes on Telegraph Avenue. A Google search for “Rapid Bus Plus” comes up with links to Berkeley or the AC Transit BRT proposal - and nothing else.

This confirms the truth: Rapid Bus Plus is a diversion created by BRT opponents and is never among the well-studied options considered by transit professionals. In contrast, more than 25 US cities have already implemented or are in the process of implementing a full BRT project that includes dedicated lanes to keep buses from being entangled in ordinary traffic.

If any city anywhere is implementing Rapid Bus Plus, we would welcome the information so that we can all learn from the experience.

Len Conly

Friends of BRT

•

A PROPOSAL

Editors, Daily Planet:

I think the proposal to generate additional revenue by charging for parking at meters in downtown Berkeley during nighttime hours is very short sighted. First of all, this will be the death knoll for many downtown businesses, including restaurants and movie theaters. It is already difficult to park in downtown Berkeley. I, as well as many people I know, avoid this area “like a plague", whenever possible, when there are so many other options for restaurant dining and movie viewing, that have free and accessible parking nearby. This is also a negative way to generate revenue. It will make people angry, will reduce the nighttime visitors to this area, and have a negative impact on businesses that stay open during evening hours.

Instead, why not put a positive spin on gaining additional income by making it fun as well as profitable? For example, how about creating the first ever annual Traffic Circle Design Contest? The city could ask local businesses to donate prizes such as a dinner for two, or a pair of movie tickets to downtown businesses.

Prizes could run the gamut from:

1. Best Dressed Traffic Circle.

2. Most Creative Design.

3. Most Imaginative.

4. Most Colorful.

5. Greenest.

6. And so forth.

You could charge individuals and block associations, let’s say, $10, per category, per submission, and encourage them to submit as many ideas and or existing designs or photos for each category to be included in the competition.

This will be followed up by the judging of the ideas and designs and then the first ever, Traffic Circle Annual Awards Ceremony, to be held in MLK Park, on a Saturday afternoon, next to the Farmers Market.

Now, wouldn’t that be fun? and generate revenue? and make people excited about donating money to the City of Berkeley?

Chandra Hauptman

•

IN DEFENSE OF BICYCLE TRAILERS

Editors, Daily Planet:

What a difference in perspective! Amanda Duisman (Letters, April 22) wants to ban bicycle trailers because she thinks they are unsafe for small children, while I bought one, in part, because I thought it would be safer than carrying a child on the back of my bike. I will not try to convince her of this here, as I am afraid she will then just want to ban both.

If we ban activities for people’s own good, where do we stop? Baby strollers? Kids on bikes? Pedestrians?

Do we ignore social justice? Not everybody owns a car. What about the health aspects of exercise? Driven everywhere, our kids become obese, and are prone to early onset diabetes and heart problems.

Most motor vehicles have safety systems, but nonetheless, 87 percent of people killed by motor vehicles are occupants of the vehicles themselves, while less than 2 percent of those killed are cyclists. Increasing the number of cyclists (or even pedestrians) by a little bit will increase their exposure to cars, but if you increase their number enough to significantly decrease vehicular traffic it should actually reduce the total number of fatalities.

I have saved the perhaps most significant issue for last. Motor vehicles are major contributors to global climate change. What value is the supposed safety of transporting our children by car if by doing so we destroy the future for their children?

Robert Clear

•

ALSO IN DEFENSE OF BICYCLE TRAILERS

Editors, Daily Planet:

Dear me. Let me see if I get this straight. Having a child wear a helmet, or putting a flag on your bike trailer, proves that you know it’s dangerous to take the kid with you. By this logic, shouldn’t those of us who used child seats before the law required them have kept our children out of cars altogether, since we evidently were aware of the risks? One in 100 Americans dies in an auto accident, but no one suggests that children should not be transported in cars.

What the odds are for a child in a bike cart is hard to determine, since there aren’t that many out there as yet, but I imagine parents bike more carefully than most people, which is to say that they probably have fewer accidents than average. (Could be that’s also true of parents driving cars.)

Like the writers, I am old enough to be a grandmother, though so far not lucky enough. Over 25 years ago, I was hauling my kids by bicycle cart, and we all lived to tell the tale. They said they enjoyed riding with me on errands and to daycare. If they were traumatized, it’s had an odd result—both are bike riders, and our daughter is a part owner of Pedal Express, Berkeley’s bike messenger service. Should she ever bless us with a descendent, I hope and expect she’ll bring it to visit us by bicycle.

I don’t mean to minimize the danger to children from cars. But that danger peaks when, inevitably, they get old enough to walk, bike, and eventually drive, without adult supervision. The way to improve their odds is to crack down on speeding, red light running, and violations of pedestrian right-of-way.

Ann Sieck

•

STILL MORE IN DEFENSE OF BICYCLE TRAILERS

Editors, Daily Planet:

I just wanted to comment on the child safety concerns raised about bicycle trailers. A previous letter objected to these trailers and favored child seats that can be mounted on the bicycle. While there isn’t a perfect, 100 percent risk-proof way to carry a child with you on a bicycle ride (any more than in a car), I believe that under most circumstances a trailer is safer than a mounted seat.

When a seat is mounted on the bike, it affects the center of gravity of the bike, and makes it less stable and more difficult to control. If the worst happens, and the bicycle falls over, the child will go with it—and have no protection from the road, or other obstacles he or she might fall into.

A trailer, on the other hand, is stable independent of the bike. It doesn’t affect the center of gravity, and minimally affects the handling of the bike. If the bicycle and rider fall over, many trailers will not—they are attached by a pivot specifically to guard against flipping over. They also have a seatbelt and a structure that protect the child if anything does hit the trailer.

For this reason, I have felt comfortable taking my four-month-old with us on bicycle outings in his trailer. Because he’s so little, to give him added protection and to make sure his head doesn’t get jostled too much, I have used his car seat inside the trailer. We don’t take him into heavy traffic: most of Shattuck Avenue is definitely not a very safe route for bikes with kid trailers, just because there are so many cars—but there are lots of “bicycle boulevards” and less-crowded roads to use instead.

Bad things can happen to kids, no doubt about that, but he’s safer in that trailer than he would be out of it.

Gabriella Raymond

•

CHANGE IN FORMAT

Editors, Daily Planet:

The newspaper business is failing as I well know from personal experience. I had a management position at the largest chain around here that ended a year ago. Frankly, the great majority of newspapers do not deserve to survive. They all take their editorial cues from the gray New York Times, now in serious trouble itself. You can predict their views on everything from guns to climate change with your eyes closed.

Which brings me to the Berkeley Daily Planet’s alleged reason for cutting back. Let’s drop all the greening nonsense. By that logic no one should ever publish anything because that would save all the trees. No one should ever use any resources because that is interfering with our “limited” supply ! That these resources sat unused for thousands of years while people were starving to death goes unmentioned. The liberal left has become a giant nanny scold crying “Doom !” all the time. Every pleasure from drinking to smoking to hunting to driving is now the enemy and we should all wear a hairshirt in perpetuity for “nature” and the backward regions of the planet.

I bet the Daily Planet is cutting back for financial reasons. Now if anyone can verify the rumor that KPFA is cutting airtime 50 percent to lessen airwaves pollution that would be nice.

Michael P. Hardesty

Oakland

•

APPLE MOTH SPRAYING

Editors, Daily Planet:

Now that the powers that be (a Santa Clara County Superior Court judge and the Schwarzenegger Administration) have agreed to temporarily suspend the threatened aerial spraying of pesticide gas over much of the Bay Area in an attempt to sexually harass a small brown moth, we need to force a complete and final end to this insane plan.

The incompetent Bush administration has been wrong about almost everything in the last seven years; why

does anyone in their right mind possibly think that they would be right about a supposed big threat posed by the presence of the light brown apple moth (Epiphyas postvittana)?

American apple growers originally lobbied the federal United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) to classify this small moth as a big threat to their crops as a way of cutting down on competition from New Zealand apple exporters. It worked for a few years, and forced the New Zealand apple growers to undertake unnecessary and toxic sprayings of their orchards. This moth has been living in New Zealand for about a century and is considered to be a minor agricultural pest there.

This moth, a native to Australia, has also lived in New Caledonia, Hawai’i and England for many years. These areas are still green and agriculturally productive. The residents and the farmers of Australia, New Zealand, New Caledonia, Hawai’i and England have managed to co-exist with this moth without having to resort to the aerial pesticide

spraying of entire cities and towns.

But now that this moth has been discovered in California, other countries can and are demanding that this state take steps to eliminate the presence of the moth. So the discovered presence of the Apple Moth is a threat to the potential export profits of American apple growing corporations, it is not an actual threat to the growing of the apples. Hoisted on their own petard! Just agribusiness corporate greed coming home to roost, so to speak.

A quick search of the Internet will reveal that the supposed presence of agricultural insect pests is the basis of many ongoing trade battles and trade wars between different food-producing countries and food-consuming nations. This brown apple moth brouhaha is just the latest conflict to appear recently in our California news media as a major story. Our apple farmers and our state and federal agricultural experts need to consult with apple growers in New Zealand and Australia and find some low-key biological controls as a remedy for the presence of the moth. The USDA should rejoin the real world and immediately downgrade this bogus threat level posed by the presence of this moth.

Please write letters to your City Council representatives, your County supervisors, your State representatives and your Federal representatives and tell them “no” to any aerial spraying of pesticides or any other poison gases in the Bay Area.

James K. Sayre

Oakland

•

FRANKENNEGGER HAIKU

Editors, Daily Planet:

i shall close your schools;

then you invent more machines

to teach your children.

Arnie Passman

•

ABU GHRAIB: FOUR YEARS AND NOTHING HAS CHANGED

Editors, Daily Planet:

It has been four years since we learned of the torture at Abu Ghraib and our government still has not acted to restore America’s honor by unequivocally banning torture and other forms of cruel treatment.

I encourage anyone who does not believe that the Bush Administration did not orchestrate the torture techniques to read Philip Zimbardo’s “The Lucifer Effect.” Zimbardo did an experiment back in 1971 with Stanford students that emulated what happens when they are divided up into prisoners and guards and given very little guidance. The result: what he calls a “ ‘perfect storm’ which leads good people to engage in evil actions.”

Zimbardo testified at one of the court-martials that it is the system of vague rules, implicit approval and assured immunity that led to the abuse of prisoners. (His testimony was later dismissed.) While the actual acts were perpetrated by individuals, the authority structure was intentionally designed to allow such abuses to occur. The resulting abuse has been not only harmful to the prisoners but also the guards has led us “moral” outsiders to erroneously characterize them both as “monsters.”

This complete disregard for a person’s humanity, that of the prisoner as well as our troops acting as guards, goes against treating humans with dignity and respect. We have flouted the Geneva Convention to the detriment of our own captured troops, but also to our souls as human beings.

Mr. Bush has all but left the car on cruise control as he speeds his way to whatever is next for him after his term is over. It’s up to the next president to restore America’s moral authority. The next president must swear off the use of torture by any and all U.S. agencies, order a complete investigation into this system of abuse, and establish clear guidelines of interrogation. We will not only be attempting to restore the humanity of those we incarcerate, but also our own humanity.

Both are at stake.

Evans McGowan

San Anselmo

•

RODEOS

Editors, Daily Planet:

The Red Bluff Round-up dodged a serious bullet on April 20 when a rodeo bull, “Blue Steel,” jumped an eight-foot fence into the audience, injuring six people in the process, three of them children. It’s a miracle that no one was killed. The story made the national news.

But simply to say that this was an unavoidable “fluke” begs the issue, and rodeos around the country are setting themselves up for tragedies and lawsuits if they don’t do something to prevent such occurrences in the future. I’m reminded of the recent incident at the San Francisco Zoo when a tiger jumped a 15-foot moat and wall, and killed a zoo visitor. That, too, could be considered a “fluke,” yet zoos around the country, indeed world, immediately took a hard look at their public and animal safety policies and requirements, and changes were made.

The rodeo community needs to follow suit for the protection of both the fans and the animals. Is there any sort of national standard for rodeo arenas? Should there be a 9-foot minimum fence requirement at all arenas, for instance? It’s time for various state legislatures to take a look at this issue.

All California legislators may be written in care of the State Capitol, Sacramento, CA 95814.

Eric Mills, coordinator

Action for Animals

Oakland

•

SOFT TOUCH

Editors, Daily Planet:

My advice to Dorothy Snodgrass (Letters, April 25): Don’t be a soft touch. I also hate finding more address labels in my mail. My response: I refuse to give money to any organization that sends me labels or offers any kind of “free prize” in return for my donation. And I tell them so by sending a note in their return envelope, pointing out that they’re wasting money that should be going to their cause, and further that the adhesive labels cannot be recycled like other paper.

Jerry Landis

•

MEDIA AND THE ELECTION

Editors, Daily Planet:

I am really angry at both the Democratic and Republican parties for allowing the media to select our presidential candidates. Where is their spine? How dare they allow the media to decide who to include and exclude in the debates, and to set up the questions and the formats! The parties should have acted to prevent this. And I think this is not the first election that this has happened—the media chose Kerry last time.

I am not a conspiracy theorist, but I do believe that there are a lot of corrupt people out there who will to anything to attain power. They will corrupt our voting machines (Ohio), corrupt voter lists (Florida), corrupt the caucus process (Iowa), and corrupt media coverage (think Edwards and Kucinich).

Who is protecting the democratic process? Maybe we need foreign observers like other countries? A U.N. presence? We certainly live in strange times.

Margot Smith

•

HEAL THE ANGER

Editors, Daily Planet:

I wonder if we can find a way to heal the anger of students who scrawl graffiti on school walls. I know the students feel frustrated. Some of the frustration comes from the discipline necessary in any place of education. But some of the frustration comes from a curriculum which is not adapted for low achievers. The curriculum for low achievers should develop those skills