Daily Archives: January 28, 2011
The Berkeley Wire: 01.28.11
Berkeley Free Clinic faces tough times [East Bay Express]
Judge dismisses lawsuit against Daily Cal editor [AP]
Nonprofit create stoves that reduce violence against women of Darfur [KALW News]
Appeals court upholds Cal football player’s rape conviction [KTVU]
Berkeley Art Museum looks at James Whistler [Artdaily.org]
Home 101 on Shattuck a trove of flea market finds [SFGate]
Photo: South Berkeley by The Reporta/Berkeleyside Flickr stream
New Berkeley teen center opens its doors
Teens in Berkeley will now have a new place to hang out after school.
The YMCA-PG&E Teen Center, a joint project that took an abandoned building and turned it into a new downtown center for youth, will officially open its doors today.
The “Get Amped” open house will be held from 6:30 pm to 10 pm. at 2111 Martin Luther King Way. There will be booths scattered around the building showcasing the programs that will be offered. Some of these include after-school tutoring, college preparation classes, Youth in Government, which exposes teens to the mechanics of the state government, and Interact Club, a Rotary Club community service organization for teens. There will also be refreshments and musical performances.
“Our center is about engaging teens to take control of their own lives, to do well in school, take on leadership roles, think about career opportunities and how to get there,” said Tracy Hanna, the center’s executive director. “We want to help them become responsible adults when they leave high school.” … Continue reading »
Councilman Max Anderson in hospital for back surgery
City councilmember Max Anderson has missed the last two council meetings because of a bad back.
Anderson had surgery early this week to repair the problem, and the operation went well, according to Councilmember Laurie Capitelli.
The operation was necessary because the pain was so bad, said Capitelli. He expects Anderson to be out of commission for another few weeks.
Anderson represents District 3, the south-central part of Berkeley.
The rats of Telegraph Avenue
One of the most graphic moments at Berkeleyside’s inaugural Local Business Forum on Monday night was when Marc Weinstein, the co-founder 20 years ago of Amoeba Music, stood up and described a scene he encounters regularly on the vacant lot near his store on the corner of Telegraph and Haste.
“I don’t want to turn people off any more from coming down to Telegraph because it’s such a wonderful place,” he said. “But there’s millions of rats in this one lot — rats — and there’s homeless people all around that lot right now feeding the rats all this thrown-away pizza out of the garbage cans… There are no plans to do anything with that lot. That empty lot has been there for 20-plus years. It’s just blight on the street.” … Continue reading »
People’s Park tree-sitter charged with attempted murder
UC police have charged a man who has been sitting in a tree in People’s Park for the last three months with attempted murder.
Matthew Dodt, 54, was arrested around 3:15 am today after a six-hour standoff, according to Lt. Mark Decoulode of the UC Berkeley police department.
Dodt allegedly stabbed a man who had climbed up into the tree for a conversation, said Lt. Decoulode. Dodt stabbed the man’s hand, which had been resting on his neck. The man was … Continue reading »
Ravenous: Dayna Macy faces her food obsessions
For much of her life Dayna Macy has had a complicated relationship with food.
An overeater who sought comfort in cheese, chocolate, and charcuterie, Macy watched as her weight began to balloon as she aged: she went from being a size 10 as a young adult to a size 18 in her 40s.
She felt increasingly uncomfortable in her body, began experiencing weight-related health problems such as high blood pressure and high cholesterol, and danced around what she refers to as the “f” word.
The communications director at Yoga Journal didn’t like what was happening to her and wanted to figure out why food had such a powerful hold over her and what she could do about it.
With her longtime background in yoga – she started studying the discipline in 1995 — Macy searched for balance on food matters. When she began writing for Yoga Journal’s “Eating Wisely” column; the irony was not lost on her: she ate too much and weighed too much.
True to her Berkeley roots, though, Macy ate good food — just lots of it. Dry-cured Moroccan olives, triple-cream French blue cheese, well-marbled, sustainably-raised sausage, fruit-infused bonbons with dark chocolate ganache. These are Macy’s go-to foods. (Locavore alert: She has subscribed to a CSA for years.)
Two years ago she decided something had to shift. So she spent time with farmers, food artisans, butchers, a Zen chef, a forager, and a chocolatier to better understand where her food comes from, why she obsesses about certain foods, and how nostalgia and tradition impact her food choices. … Continue reading »
Police look for shooting suspect
Berkeley police are looking for a 21-year old man who is suspected of punching and choking a woman and then firing gunshots at the car in which she fled.
On Jan. 23, at approximately 1:22 pm, Brian Fox got into an argument with a woman in a home in the 1000 block of Woodside Avenue, according to police. He punched her and tried to choke her. She and a friend who was in the house fled by automobile, and Fox … Continue reading »
