Daily Archives: February 3, 2011
The Berkeley Wire: 02.03.11
Bingo “kingpin” behind shuttered Gilman Street bingo parlor [East Bay Express]
Berkeley massage parlor closed; city to review permits of 20 others [Berkeley Voice]
2,000 people see Sotomayor preside over moot court competition [CC Times]
Berkeley company produces portable solar generator [The Oakbook]
Charges against People’s Park assailant reduced to misdemeanor [Daily Planet]
Geoffrey Keppel, Cal psych professor, dies [SF Chronicle]
Donkey & Goat winery and Gather chef partner for spring release party [PRWeb]
Photo: Berkeley sidewalk graffiti by artsnooze/Berkeleyside Flickr pool
Tweeted: Sonia Sotomayor spotted in Berkeley
It was easy to follow Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor’s travels around Berkeley on Wednesday and Thursday by following Twitter. She visited some classrooms at Rosa Parks Elementary School on Wednesday, presided over a moot court competition at Zellerbach Hall on Wednesday night, visited the law school on Thursday, walked through Berkeley’s downtown and had lunch at Chez Panisse.
Here is a recap of Sotomayor’s movements as seen through the Twitter accounts of various Berkeleyans.
Wednesday 2/2
@latinageek She’s so cute! Shut up, she so is. :-D ~Justice Sotomayor visits Rosa Parks Elementary
@woonster Justice Sotomayor visited the boys’ school today – very inspiring: http://tinyurl.com/4drlqwd
@weezus Sorry I put my kids on the school bus this am and missed Sonya Sotomayor at Rosa Parks School in #Berkeley.
@berkeleyside Justice Sotomayor visits Rosa Parks Elementary http://bit.ly/gdXIFs
@paulraber So cool! Justice Sotomayor drops in on a Berkeley elementary school. http://bit.ly/em1Bhz
@californiamag Supreme Count Justice Sonia Sotomayor is on campus. Guess that explains the Homeland Security vehicles.
@blondedove85 Meeting Justice Sotomayor-coolest thing at law school so far. Got to ask her a question! She was SUPER nice. And wise.
@mattkrupnick MT @BerkeleyLawNews: Moot court competition with Sotomayor sold out: 2,000 tickets, more than 2x previous competitions.
@KALWinformant: Zellerbach hall filling in anticipation of Sotomayor, who will be presiding over law school competition
@Moshyin Uuuuugh, they wont let me in to the sonia sotomayor thing! ><
@closnai Waiting to see Justice Sotomayor. Only a few feet away!! Soo effing excited.
@EzekielSF: Wow. This UCBerkeley Moot Court competition is intense! And Justice Sotomayor is definitely grilling the participants. #UCBerkeley
@BerkeleyLawNews 2L student Thomas Frampton wins honors moot court competition. Justice Sotomayor calls him & competitor 2L Edward Piper “magnificent.” about
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UC students hold “die-in” to support Egyptian protesters
Dozens of UC Berkeley students held a rally and “die-in” on Sproul Plaza today to offer their support to the millions protesting in Egypt.
“This is to commemorate the people who died because of our aid to Egypt,” said Nuha Massri, a senior, told the crowd. She mentioned that the the U.S. gives Egypt $1.5 billion in aid each year. “This is for the students to know how we are complicit in the (things happening) in … Continue reading »
Peggy Orenstein dissects girls’ passion for pink
From her home in north Berkeley where she lives with her filmmaker husband Steven Okazaki and seven year old daughter Daisy, Peggy Orenstein has been opining for years for the New York Times magazine about the world of girls and feminism. Last week, her latest book, Cinderella Ate My Daughter, was published and it is already climbing the bestseller list. (It will debut at #13 on the New York Times list on Feb. 13) The book is both an expose of and meditation about the corporate push to market princesses and pink and early sexuality to young girls.
Orenstein just escaped the historic snows of Chicago (she got on the last plane leaving O’Hare on Tuesday) and is about to embark on the West Coast portion of her book tour. (She will be speaking Feb. 7 at St. John’s Church in Berkeley) Berkeleyside caught up with her to ask a few questions.
Do you wear pink?
Of course I wear pink. I’m not a crazy person. But it’s such a tiny slice of the rainbow and although in one way it seems to celebrate girlhood, it also repeatedly and firmly fuses girls’ identity to appearance then it presents that connection not only as innocent but as evidence of innocence. And that innocent pink pretty quickly turns into something else, a kind of diva, self-absorbed pink and ultimately a sexualized pink.
What is Daisy’s position on the color now?
Truthfully, she was actually never that into pink, which is part of why I became so aware of it. It was never her favorite color, but people were constantly pressing it on her. I remember being in a drug store and the very nice clerk offered her a balloon, then asked what color she wanted and before she could answer, (I think she was going to say purple) said, “I bet I know,” and handed her the pink one. Daisy looked at me kind of confused, like she wasn’t sure if she was supposed to say thank you or no thank you. And I thought, really? When did THIS happen? I think last time I asked her, her favorite color was “rainbow.” That’s all right by me.
What’s the big deal about little girls being obsessed with princesses? Hasn’t that always been the case?
Comparing the way girls do Princess today to the way we played is like comparing a five-channel TV to a satellite dish. There are 26,000 Disney Princess products alone—considering they can’t slap them on cars, liquor, cigarettes anti-depressants or tampons, that means they’re on EVERYTHING. And it becomes this mandate, the only game in town. I remember going to Daisy’s preschool and they were doing a project where they were making a book, each one filling in the sentence “if I were a [blank] I’d [blank] to the store.” So if I were a ball I’d roll to the store. And the boys had filled the sentence in all kinds of ways. Yes, some said Lightening McQueen but they said puppies, bugs, raisins, all sorts of things. The girls said exactly four things: Princess, Ballerina, Butterfly and Fairy. One especially ambitious girl said “Princess, butterfly fairy Ballerina.” It’s too narrow. The teacher was really surprised—she’d been around a long time and this was really when the princess juggernaut was truly taking off. She had tried to get the girls to broaden their imaginations but said they just wouldn’t.
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Berkeley bicyclists reach new height
The Least Most, a media collective focusing on “bikes, music, art, adventure and the overall pursuit of good times” posted these wonderful pictures of the Berkeley skate park on Fifth and Harrison streets. Clearly, bikers like the park, too. We thought the photos were worth sharing. They were taken by photographer Kyle Emery-Peck.
Berkeley cannabis collectives slapped with huge tax bills
The state Board of Equalization is contending that the Berkeley Patients Group, one of the oldest and largest medical cannabis dispensaries in California, owes $6 million in back taxes, Berkeleyside has learned.
The board claims that the dispensary on San Pablo Avenue did not pay taxes on the medical marijuana it sold from July 2004 to June 2007 and now owes $4.4 million in taxes and about $1.6 million in interest.
The charges come on the heels of a September 2010 ruling in which the Board of Equalization determined that another Berkeley cannabis collective, Patients Care Collective, had to pay $639,000 for back taxes it owed from January 1, 2005 to September 8, 2008 on the sales of cannabis and marijuana cookies.
The Berkeley Patients Group, which has about 13,000 members and serves 800 to 1,000 patients each day, is contesting the charges, according to Elisabeth Jewel, whose firm Aroner, Jewel, & Ellis advises BPG on governmental regulations. Until February 2007, the laws regarding the collection of taxes for the sale of cannabis were murky, which is why the BPG did not pay, she said.
“There is no allegation of malfeasance in terms of collecting a tax and not paying it,” said Jewel. “The Berkeley Patients Group contends it was not clear to them that they had to pay sales taxes on what they consider medicine.”
The Board of Equalization will hold a hearing on the charges at its February 22-24 meeting in Sacramento. While the board would not officially confirm there is a claim pending against BPG, a spokesman did confirm the BPG hearing was on the agenda, which has not yet been made public. Berkeleyside learned about BPG’s late tax payments from a source close to the board, who asked not to be named.
