Daily Archives: February 22, 2012
The Berkeley Wire: 02.22.12
Berkeley-based scientist causes storm over document sourcing [Mercury News]
Suspect in north Berkeley murder has criminal record [Daily Cal]
Eat with your hands for sensuous, mindful meal [Bay Area Bites]
Afro Caribbean Suya coming to Berkeley [East Bay Express]
Car sharing startup Wheelz coming to UC Berkeley [NYT]
Berkeley victim confronted murder suspect twice [Chronicle]
Berkeley house features great views, modern style [WSJ]
Photo: West Berkeley, by D.H. Parks/Berkeleyside Flickr pool.
Councilmember: Unanswered questions over murder
Update, 4:32 pm: Murder suspect Daniel DeWitt did not enter a plea this afternoon at his arraignment in Alameda County Superior Court, according to an updated report by Henry Lee in the Chronicle. His father, Al DeWitt Jr., confirmed the person his son described as his fiancée, Zoey, does not exist. Daniel DeWitt was diagnosed five years ago with paranoid schizophrenia and has a pending misdemeanor battery case for an incident last year.
Original story: Berkeley City Councilmember Susan Wengraf is to meet with Berkeley Police Chief Michael Meehan to seek answers to what she says are still unanswered questions over the police response to the Feb. 18 killing of Peter Cukor, 67, outside his home at Park Gate in the north Berkeley hills.
In particular, Wengraf says she wants to understand more clearly the prioritization of non-emergency calls by BPD and larger protocol issues about how calls to the police from the community are handled.
BDP did not respond to a non-emergency call placed by Cukor at approximately 8:45 pm on Feb. 18. because patrol teams had been reconfigured to monitor an Occupy protest march which was coming into Berkeley from Oakland. The first of several BPD officers arrived at the scene within five minutes of a subsequent 911 call by Cukor’s wife, which was placed at 9:02 pm, after the murder suspect had begun to assault Cukor. … Continue reading »
Bill T. Jones and “Story/Time”: Anything might happen
On Friday and Saturday, the Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Dance Company will present “Story/Time” at Zellerbach Hall courtesy of Cal Performances. Lou Fancher previews the show with the company’s Associate Artistic Director Janet Wong, and, below, sits down with Jones himself to talk about the new project and the impact it is having on his life’s work
When the Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Dance Company catapults onto the stage at Zellerbach Hall on February 24 and 25, even the dancers won’t know exactly what will happen.
Just a few hours before the 8:00 pm curtain, they will have lined the backstage hallway, learning the sequence spewed out by Random.org and refined under the watchful eye of Bill T. Jones and his Associate Artistic Director Janet Wong.
“We use Random to spin the material to determine which story goes where and what dancer does which part,” Wong explains, in a 45-minute phone interview a week before opening night. “Everyone has a chart: sometimes it’s brilliant and sometimes it’s horrible.”
Her evaluations are hardly begin to reflect Wong’s high standards and intense commitment to Jones, with whom she has worked for decades.
“The reason Bill wanted to do this piece is that John Cage is a mentor,” she says, citing the inspiration for the new work. … Continue reading »
Early morning fire breaks out at west Berkeley art gallery
A fire that broke out at around 3:20 am Wednesday morning at Gate 13 Art Gallery at 813 Page Street in west Berkeley left several people displaced and two firefighters with minor injuries from a resident dog, according to media reports.
The working studio and residential art gallery is distinctive for having an airplane tail jutting out of its roof, and this momentarily confused the firefighters arriving on the scene, although they quickly realized it was an artwork.
The single-alarm fire was reported at 3:23 a.m., a fire dispatcher told the Mercury News. It was put out at 4:08 a.m. and caused moderate damage to one of the buildings on the property.
Berkeley orders two cannabis collectives to shut down
The city of Berkeley has issued “cease and desist” orders to two medical cannabis collectives, leading one to shut its doors.
The 40 Acres Medical Marijuana Growers Collective at 1820 San Pablo Avenue stopped operations in late January after Berkeley Code Enforcement sent it a letter informing the group it was operating in violation of the city’s municipal code.
The Perfect Plants Patients Group, or 3pgs, at 2840B Sacramento Street is still in business.
“It has come to the City of Berkeley’s attention that you are operating a medical marijuana establishment that is dispensing medical marijuana in a non-residential zoning district,” Gregory Daniel, the code enforcement supervisor, wrote to the two collectives on Dec. 8. “The establishment is in violation of the Berkeley Municipal Code … and must therefore cease and desist.”
Daniel also told 3pgs that it is operating less than 600 feet from Longfellow Middle School, which is the minimum distance any cannabis entity can be from a school. … Continue reading »
Where in Berkeley?
Know where this is? Take a guess and let us know in the Comments.
Update, 9:26 am: Abby guessed this is Ashby Avenue just east of 9th Street. The view is looking north and, according to Neil Mishalov who took the picture, shows “a relic and curio of an East Bay mass transportation system of the early 20th Century. These railroad tracks, which are crossing Ashby Avenue, are part of the few the only remaining remnants of the Southern Pacific Interurban Electric Railway tracks of the Berkeley Ninth Street Line. The line was abandoned on 26 July 1941.”
Congratulations, Abby, on being this week’s winner!
Photo: Neil Mishalov.
