The sobering report recently released by the U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) found that "the world is likely to surpass its ambitious climate target — limiting warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit) above preindustrial temperatures — by the early 2030s. Beyond that threshold, scientists have found, climate disasters will become so extreme that people will not be able to adapt." -more-

While we’re sitting in Berkeley with temperatures in the comfortable 70’s, it’s been big news the last couple of weeks that the planet just finished the hottest June ever recorded and July 4th was the hottest recorded day on earth.

As I write the heat domes in the U.S. South including Texas are moving into California, New York City and the surrounding area are under flood warnings (this is not the floods in Vermont and the Hudson Valley that started the week), the Minneapolis air quality index is in the unhealthy zone greater than 150 from Canadian wildfires now numbering somewhere around 900, the ocean temperature off Florida reached 98.1° and Farmers Insurance pulled out of Florida. Iowa meteorologist Chris Gloninger made the news after quitting his job in Des Moines, Iowa, over death threats for his coverage of climate change in the weather reports, and Ari Melber on his MSNBC show The Beat asked Bill Nye the Science Guy if this is the new normal.

Bill Nye gave Melber the same answer Michael Mann gave Thom Hartmann some weeks ago. There is no normal. Normal implies stability.

On a heating planet there is no new normal except that it is going to get worse. -more-

The Future: Connected Homes Filled with Disconnected Families
The corporados behind the introduction of the "Xfinity 10G network" are filling the airways with radio spots promoting the adoption of wireless communications technologies that (unlike existing copper-wire networks) bathe human customers—and all noncustomers within range of the high-intensity transmitters—in an invisible, vibrating tide of electromagnetic frequencies (EMFs) 24 hours a day, every minute of the day. -more-

I've lost count of how many times the city of Berkeley has destroyed our traffic circle garden. The most recent was on of June 30 when I went out and stopped the subcontractors (a group of Spanish speaking laborers) from scrapping to the wet, swampy, mud the garden our community has worked so hard to create. Ironically, just a few weeks previously a neighbor asked on the local neighborhood email list: "I have no idea who is responsible for the wildflowers that are growing in the round about but thank you! It has never looked better." -more-

Many of my readers probably know what it is like to go through a psychotic episode. It is hell. It is not only hell on the psychotic person, but also on family and anyone else who is trying to help a psychotic person get into treatment.

People probably wish they could wave a magic wand and get a relative or close person into treatment, whether voluntary or not. Just get meds into the person, any method that works. People have put medication into a relative's food. There are probably odder methods that can be thought up.

A psychotic person's belief system is usually fully out of sync with reality when their illness is in the severe stages. I'm aware of all of this because I have been psychotic.

I've been hospitalized four or five times in psych wards, and all but the first were relapses due to going off medication against medical advice--wherein I needed to be medicated to get a grasp of reality and get the psychosis under control.

Coming back to reality was good. The extreme disconnection from normal mental function had prevented me from interacting with anyone and it had made me exceedingly disabled. In some instances, I posed a danger--caused by disconnection from reality. How would it be if you believed that you could fly at will and you planned to get into a ten-thousand-pound speeding truck to prove it? Not to mention, psychosis is a harrowing thing to go through--and that's a vast understatement. -more-

On Monday, July 24 at 6:00 PM, the hearing on the appeal, filed by more than 100 people who live around Willard Park objecting to the replacement building and the variance granted by the Zoning Adjustment Board will be heard by the City Council. This special meeting will be held on Monday, July 24 at 6 pm at the “West Campus “ 1231 Addison Street. People can attend in person or on Zoom. This appeal is the only item on the agenda for this meeting. -more-

he recent report by The Center for Policy and Research, titled "American Torturers: FBI and CIA Abuses at Dark Sites and Guantánamo," sheds light on the horrifying experiences endured by Abu Zubaydah since 2002. Through 40 haunting drawings, he vividly illustrates the inhumane treatment inflicted upon him. -more-

Carrie-Ann Matheson, San Francisco Opera Center Artistic Director, indicates that as part of Merola Opera’s training responsibilities for young singers, care must be taken to give them support in singing roles that often call for women to be abused and even die at the hands of men. In fact, too many operas sport exactly this scenario. Given how prevalent sexual abuse against women is present in our contemporary American society, the challenge today is to dramatise the issue of sexual violence by males against women not just as something in opera librettos from the Baroque to the present, but also as an issue still all too present today in society. Thus, with the #Me Too movement in mind, Carrie-Ann Matheson decided to have Merola Opera take on Benjamin Britten’s controversial opera The Rape of Lucretia. -more-

Worth Noting:

Council did not get to the agenda item on the plan for the Civic Center at the Tuesday July 11 Council meeting. Mayor Arreguin said the Civic Center Plan would be rescheduled before Council goes on summer recess (July 26 – September 11). Expect the presentation and vote on July 25 at 4 pm, but keep checking the City website. https://berkeleyca.gov/

If you are driving to a meeting at the North Berkeley Senior Center allow lots of extra time to find parking.

• Monday:
  • At 10:30 am the Public Safety Committee meets in the hybrid format on police response.
  • At 7 pm the Housing Advisory Commission meets in person on Fair Access to Housing.
• Tuesday:
  • At 6 pm the City Council meets in the hybrid format on the Ashby BART housing development and public parking at both stations. A total of 950 parking spaces will be removed to build housing.
• Wednesday:
  • At 1:30 pm the Commission on Aging meets in person.
  • At 2 pm the FITES Committee meets in the hybrid format on reconfiguring University, Oxford and Fulton for the 51B bus and bicycles.
  • At 6 pm there is a community meeting online on the Santa Fe Park Plan.
  • At 6 pm the Civic Arts Commission meets in person.
  • At 6 pm the Environment and Climate Commission meets in person.
  • At 6:30 pm the HWCAC meets in person.
  • At 7 pm the Commission on Labor meets in person on Labor Bill of Rights.
• Thursday:
  • At 6:30 pm the FCPC / OGC meets in person with an open government complaint, public meeting procedures, public comment and meeting transcripts on the agenda.
  • At 7 pm the DRC meets in person on the final review of one project (38 bedrooms have no windows).
  • At 7 pm the Mental Health Commission meets in person – full agenda.
  • At 7 pm the Rent Board meets in the hybrid format and receives report on evictions.
• Saturday: From 11 am – 7 pm at the Downtown Berkeley Plaza there will be live music, mural painting, vendors and food trucks to celebrate the arts.

The appeal of the Community Center in Willard Park is July 24.



The July 25 Regular City Council meeting agenda is available for comment. Item 38 is the Fixed Automated License Plate Readers (ALPRS). Use link or check list of agenda items at the end of the calendar. https://berkeleyca.gov/your-government/city-council/city-council-agendas

Directions with links to ZOOM support for activating Closed Captioning and Save Transcript are at the bottom of this calendar. -more-