Dozens of lecturers, supporters and students on Wednesday afternoon in Berkeley celebrated a historic win for University of California lecturers in terms of pay and benefits from the university.

They chanted, sang and spoke on the steps of the student union at the flagship University of California at Berkeley beginning at about noon.

"When we fight, we win," the lecturers chanted to start the rally.

"Whose university? Our university." they said.

Following two and a half years of bargaining, the union representing 6,500 lecturers and librarians struck a tentative agreement with UC early Wednesday morning, averting a two-day strike that would have started Wednesday. -more-

The Berkeley Police Department is in search of a missing at-risk person, the department announced on Wednesday evening. 25-year-old Isaiah Lottie was last seen in the 2100 block of Ashby Avenue at 2:30 p.m. He's described as a 5-foot-6-inch, 150 pound African American man with a short black mohawk. He was last seen wearing a black and orange hat and a burnt orange hoodie with Looney Tunes characters on it. Police urge anyone with more information on his location to call 911 or contact the police department. -more-

A Diary is supposed to just flow, but I find this week I keep starting over to describe what happened at the three meetings of consequence I did attend and being thankful that the Veterans Holiday meant the last city meetings ended on Wednesday.

The commissions are still trying to figure out what to do with their unfinished work and what the loss of their expertise will mean as commissions are merged, commissioners are dumped, and expertise is lost, and wondering how those who remain will take on new responsibilities in areas in which they have little to no experience or knowledge. Cutting the commissions in half also means cutting half of the commissioners. Some commissioners at every meeting where the mergers enter the discussion express their surprise and dismay that their councilmembers did not seek their input and show no interest in hearing it. -more-

Beset by complaints that Facebook's social media platforms were creating mass anxiety among teenagers wracked by woes of loneliness, self-doubt, and body-shaming—by dispensing socially destablizing lies, medical untruths, political slanders, disturbing rumors, and fake news—a besotted Mark Zuckerberg attempted to quiet the uproar with a diverting announcement: Facebook was adopting a new corporate identity. Henceforth, the tech behemoth is to be known as "Meta"—short for "Metaverse." -more-

Karmic Strips

I recently clicked off a letter to the Chronicle to compliment the paper for Peter Hartlaub's online explanation of how the paper's Green Section was turned orange to commemorate the career of Giant's pitcher Buster Posey.

Now I have a related query concerning a chromatic quirk involving a Chron cartoon. Specifically: What happened to the Bumstead's blue blanket in the November 4 edition of the comic strip Blondie?

All's well in the first of the three panels where Dagwood and Blondie appear comfortably relaxing in bed but, in the second panel, the colors on their blue bedsheet suddenly start to run—actually they appear to leap! —leaving the bedcover a colorless white while streaks of blue splatter across the adjacent comics — and even over the first column on a facing newspage.

In Sherman's Lagoon (the strip above Blondie), Sherman the Shark suddenly develops stripes. In Peanuts (the strip below), the pale blue sky and iced-over skating pond are suddenly drained of color.

I checked other copies of the Nov. 4 issue in the public library and found the same weird smears. It looks like some kind of rare chemical accident damaged the blue color plate in the Chronicle's printing plant in Fremont.

In his online Posey piece, Hartlaub noted that the Chron's rare, orange-hued tribute to Buster had already become a prized on-line collectors' item. This left me to wonder if this comic-page sheet—and the rare smears that adorn it—might someday become a collectible like the "oranged" Posey edition of the Chronicle's Green Pages. -more-

Exciting news! In this Climate Emergency Report I’m going to explain how the City Council can invest in the Marina to achieve the dream of a commuter ferry and long term robust infrastructure. [ Editor’s note: Sarcasm alert! This is the first of several sarcastic observations to be found in this piece. Watch for it. Don't get fooled!]

But first, let’s look at why this comes up.

The only action item of note this week comes from the Parks and Waterfront commission, chaired by former District 8 City Council member Gordon Wozniak.

The commission proposes, in short, empty and annoying budget shenanigans. Namely, they propose that revenues from certain voter approved general taxes be placed in a “special fund” reserved for maintenance of the Marina and provision of Marina operations. -more-

Worth Noting:

Berkeley Redistricting Submission Deadline November 15, 2021. The City Council Districts must be redrawn to adjust for growing and shifting population. You can submit your own proposal for consideration https://www.cityofberkeley.info/redistricting/ The deadline time on Monday is not posted – assume it to be 5 pm for paper and email.



Housing Survey to plan for where to put 8934 units as required in the Housing Element: https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/berkeleyhousing



Vision 2050 Survey – the City is planning for a major bond measure in 2022 on infrastructure: tinyurl.com/2050survey



Reimagining Public Safety Public Meetings – the final NICJR is available: www.berkeley-rps.org



Complete Streets Survey is for the Southside, but this has implications for the rest of the

city: https://survey.alchemer.com/s3/6575124/Berkeley-Southside-Survey-October-2021



Deadline to submit response to the DEIR for the Ashby and North Berkeley BART Station Housing Projects is December 1, 2021 at 5 pm https://www.cityofberkeley.info/bartplanning/ (395 pages)



MONDAY: The Agenda Committee at 2:30 pm will be reviewing the draft agenda for the November 30^th council meeting. The draft agenda can be found after the full list of city meetings. The Homeless Commission did not meet last week and is rescheduled to meet Monday at 7 pm, the same time as the last Zero Waste Commission. This is the last Zero Waste Commission meeting before being split and merged.

TUESDAY: The council budget meets at 11 am to start the review of mid-year budget requests, the AAO process. The council regular meeting is at 6 pm. The table for the proposed city manager raise is included with the meeting agenda at the end of the meeting and agenda list.

WEDNESDAY: The Mayor is having the 2021 State of the City at 6 pm – expect it to be recorded in case you miss it. There is no agenda posted for the Commission on Aging at 1 pm tho the meeting is listed on the community calendar with a zoom link. The Commission on the Status of Women and the Redistricting Commission both meet at 6 pm. Human Welfare meets at 6:30 pm. The Commission on Labor meets at 7 pm.

THURSDAY: The agendas are not posted for the Transportation Commission, The Reimagining Public Safety Task Force and the Rent Board. The Land Use Committee meets at 10:30. Design Review Committee and Fair Campaign Practices Commission meet at 7 pm.

FRIDAY: Virtual climate Summit Series on uniting actions is at 9 am. -more-

I missed more meetings than I attended this week and even with one snafu I really have to thank the City Clerk’s office for their quick posting of meeting minutes and presentations, often up in just a day. I wish we could have the same kind of posting from the commissions, but those are getting further and further out, definitely not within the two-week requirement passed by the city council.

Monday morning, the council Public Safety Committee approved the budget referral for Councilmember Taplin’s Automated License Plate Readers (ALPR). Whoever is doing the documents coming out of Taplin’s office deserves recognition as the ALPR presentation is really quite good and worth the few minutes it takes to scroll through it. The other agenda items were continued. It will be interesting to listen to the pitch on resuming the Red-light program, since I heard at the McGee Spaulding Neighbors in Action meeting that these cameras actually increase accidents when drivers slam on the brakes in moving traffic to avoid a red light penalty. -more-

Lately, for obvious reasons, I’ve been thinking more and more about the collapse of great civilizations. I’ve become interested in how quickly it happens and in how this is reflected in the lives of the people.

A common theme seems to be that civilizations grow and grow, and bring relative prosperity, heightened trade over long distances, and considerable peace. They say that at the height of its powers, in the Mongol empire,“a maiden bearing a nugget of gold on her head could wander safely throughout the realm”

And as this prosperity and peace grows, a new normality arises. The civilization becomes more and more specialized. The bureaucracies, the technologies, the social practices, even the military ventures and brutal oppression adapt to the empire’s sweet niche in the history of humans with ever more Roman roads and aqueducts, new Silk Road trade, railroads, and telegraphs, and transoceanic fiber optics. After their births in violence and enslavement, for a time, it almost looks like the great civilizations are making things a bit better for most people.

“Turning and turning in the widening gyre…” (W. B. Yeats)

But then comes some event for which the specialization is not prepared. The bubonic plague seems to be a popular one. Throw in a mini-ice age for the Roman empire. The industrial revolution, foundation of the British empire, unprovoked, coughed up back to back World Wars. -more-

Every high school student and every adult needs to understand two facts:

1. At the United Nations Conference Parties, meeting 26, in Glasgow which is going on right now, and which is widely reported, the scientists have confirmed what we already know, namely this:

Right now, on an immediate emergency basis, very large, annual, reductions of fossil fuel burning are necessary, even though this will be highly disruptive. There is no other choice.

2. On Thursday, November 4, 2021, the majority of City Council members affirmed that they do not consider the climate emergency to be among even their top 5 priorities.

Some bonus facts:

1. On November 3, NASA announced its projection that because no action is being taken to address the climate emergency seriously, significant reductions in crop yields in the United States and globally are imminent. Corn yields may fall by as much as 24% in only 8 years from today, likely triggering food security problems globally.
2. Excluding from an emissions inventory accounting trick that did not actually reduce emissions, the City of Berkeley has never taken any action to reduce emissions as needed, although Council Members regularly spread lies to the contrary.

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EDITOR’S NOTE: This morning’s New York Times had an opinion piece by Serge Schmemann on its front page rehashing the ongoing speculation about what’s being called the “Havana Syndrome”, a mysterious collection of unpleasant symptoms which has afflicted U.S. diplomatic staff in embassies around the world, starting first in Havana in 2016. As it happens, the Planet’s longstanding “On Mental Health” columnist had just forwarded to me a piece he wrote which appeared in Street Spirit in July of 2007. Let’s say it’s at least a surprising coincidence—but have the muckety-mucks in Washington who are supposed to be investigating the Havana Syndrome ever heard of this?

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Since I am a great watcher yet not admirer of television news, I couldn’t help but catch a piece about a “crowd control device” that works by sending out microwaves, similarly to the action of a leaky microwave oven. Clearly there is much to object to and to be skeptical about concerning such a weapon. According to the manufacturer, it is supposed to penetrate the skin only to 1/64^th of an inch, so it won’t cook people’s organs, in theory. (This shallower penetration theoretically is because the radio waves are at a shorter wavelength/higher frequency compared to an oven.) The weapon is supposed to work by boiling the “water” beneath your skin (actually it’s blood and lymph and tissue) in order to give a burning sensation (actually you are being burned) and motivate people to run away (that is assuming they can run, if they are not overweight, old, a child, pregnant, or disabled). Theoretically the person should know which direction they should run. How they would know this is unknown. If someone is carrying any metal on them, such as a metal plate in their head from brain surgery, the microwaves will heat this up to an extreme temperature. The same goes for paperclips, coins glasses, etc. If someone has a pacemaker, God help him or her. -more-

We, the undersigned, are writing to express our concern about the recent decision by the Berkeley City Council, the City Manager, and the Berkeley Police Department to use encrypted public safety radio devices in Berkeley.

It is our understanding that the City of Berkeley selected the company, Motorola Solution, to provide encrypted public safety radio devices for two reasons: 1) there is no alternative radio device to share communications with neighboring police units, and 2) the company would provide a discount to this city. We now understand that these reasons are false.

The contract was given to Motorola in a no-bid process, against city regulations, and cheaper radio equipment from JVCKenwood would serve just as well with Motorola and with other neighboring systems. It seems the city council committed money to Motorola for their system upgrade, a cost which has gone from $4.2 Million to its present $6.5 million. -more-

Sometimes when people, systems, or organizations create problems, a little bit of pushback can go a long way toward resolving them. If a person wants to harass, intimidate, or otherwise create obstructions or problems for you, it can be important to show that you are not a pushover. Even when dealing with assaultive men, some counter-intimidation, or at least standing up to the person, can help with putting a stop to that. -more-

The results of the November 2nd elections were not good for Democrats but the sky is not falling. Democrats still have time to salvage the midterms if we pay attention to what went wrong; particularly in Virginia. -more-

The mechanisms in the mental health treatment system will work better for us when we grease its wheels with assertiveness. This is where, in a manner considered appropriate, we strongly ask for what we want, and ask effectively that we don't get what we don't want. This can pertain to almost anything.

In recent years I've pushed them for empathy-based therapy rather than analytic therapy. Analytic therapy, to me, resembles an unwelcome individual getting under the hood and tampering with the settings. The problem seems to stem from how therapists often receive their training. They are taught how they should perceive "clients", and this includes presuppositions that could be far from accurate. When I've worked repeatedly with intern therapists who have fresh doctorates, it seems that they all ascribe to the same playbook. And this playbook isn't any good. Therapists, with few exceptions, will behave toward "clients" in ways defined by how they are trained. Therapists don't see their clients as human beings; they see us as objects of their work. -more-

Democrats are their own worst enemies. Consider the Trump-endorsed Republican Glenn Youngkin won the Virginia gubernatorial race and New Jersey Democrat Phil Murphy’s race for reelection, supposedly a slam dunk win, turned into a nail biter. -more-

Worth Noting – lots of surveys:

Berkeley Redistricting Submission Deadline November 15, 2021. The City Council Districts must be redrawn to adjust for growing and shifting population. You can submit your own proposal for consideration https://www.cityofberkeley.info/redistricting/

Housing Survey to plan for where to put 8934 units as required in the Housing Element: https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/berkeleyhousing

Vision 2050 Survey – the City is planning for a major bond measure in 2022 on infrastructure: tinyurl.com/2050survey

Reimagining Public Safety Public Meetings – the final NICJR is available: www.berkeley-rps.org

Complete Streets Survey is for the Southside, but this has implications for the rest of the city: https://survey.alchemer.com/s3/6575124/Berkeley-Southside-Survey-October-2021

Deadline to submit response to the DEIR for the Ashby and North Berkeley BART Station Housing Projects is December 1, 2021 at 5 pm https://www.cityofberkeley.info/bartplanning/ (395 pages)



Monday – Youth Commission at 5 pm,

Tuesday – Regular City Council meeting is at 6 pm with 20. Objective Standards - should solar panels be blocked by shadows from new construction? 21. Should Hotel tax from the waterfront go to the starving waterfront budget or the general fund? 22. Officeholder accounts – should councilmembers receive donations to special spending account and if so what are the rules, 23. Should the budget committee consider a pilot program for free AC transit on Sundays to encourage use of transit?

Wednesday – At 6 pm Reimagining Public Safety report from the consultants for Districts 1,2 and the Southside Complete Streets with several designs to improve walking, biking, driving, and transit safety. The Homeless Commission, Parks Commission and Police Accountability Board all meet at 7 pm.

Thursday – Veterans Holiday followed by reduced service day on Friday - no meetings.

Saturday – Berkeley Neighborhoods Council at 10 am.



The November 9 council agenda is posted at the bottom and available for comment. Note items moved to November 9 from last council meeting which ran until after midnight: 20. Objective standards, density, design, shadows (with an absence of residential neighborhood solar protections), 21. Marina hotel tax (will tax go to the Marina or general fund), 22. Officeholder accounts and 23. free Sunday AC transit are on the agenda under ACTION.



The November 16 City Council regular meeting agenda is available for comment. Item 12 is the proposed 28.11% raise for the City Manager. The City’s Salary survey has been expanded with population and land area added. You should find these two additional components very interesting when comparing salaries. The expanded table is with the November 16 agenda.



Save Solar Petition https://www.savecaliforniasolar.org/sign-petition?utm_source=personal&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=organization

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On entering Zellerbach Hall on Sunday afternoon, November 7, the first sign that things would not go well was the abysmal lack of a substantial program for this performance of Handel’s opera Alcina by the prestigious ensemble The English Consort.Concert nstead, we were offered only a single page listing singers, and notifying us that the performance would last approximately three hours and forty-five minutes with two intermissions. Okay, I know that Handel’s operas tend to be long, even overlong, especially given all the repeats inherent in Handel’s use of the da capo formula. But Alcina is a particularly convoluted opera involving a sorceress who presides over a fantasy island. Why in the world Cal Performances didn’t provide audiences with a plot synopsis is beyond belief. -more-