UC graduates mark one year in Iranian jail [Oakland Tribune]
Ronald Harold Stevenson III, longtime activist, dies suddenly [Oakland Tribune]
Downtown Berkeley Bart plaza will be remodeled with $1.8 million grant [Daily Planet]
Berkeley Iceland eligible for listing on National Register of Historic Places [Save Berkeley Iceland]
Berkeley Kite Festival at the Marina this weekend [Highline Kites]
Jewish Film Festival movies at Berkeley Rep [SFJFF]

Photo of 2009 Kite Festival by Tracey Taylor

“Throw us a doughnut!”

That was William Rodarmor’s winning entry in the New Yorker’s June 28th cartoon caption contest.

Rodarmor, a Berkeley resident, is an award-winning French literary translator and a former editor at PC World magazine.

The other contenders for the caption were:

“Abandon cup!”

“We’ll never get to sleep tonight.”

Hat tip to Nancy Friedman

On May 20, there was a devastating fire at the BEBHS which burned down a majority of the building, killed   twelve cats, and left many animals homeless. With their goal of raising $25,000, BEBHS hopes to rebuild the shelter.

The 2010 Bay to Barkers Dog Walk & Festival will feature a dog walk, doggy olympiad, pet festival, crafts for kids and dogs, “Do You Look Like Your Dog?” contest, alumni reunion, and spa time for canines and people.

Just around the corner and down the street from where I live on a stretch of Sacramento Street that includes liquor stores and the dodgy characters who frequent such places, you’ll find Spiral Gardens, a slightly disheveled verdant oasis on a fenced in corner of a formerly empty city lot.

It’s a welcome addition to the neighborhood. For the past six years in this location, the community food security project has developed a four-pronged approach to reaching low-income residents, particularly people of color, on the southwest side of town. The nonprofit is home to a nursery chock full of edible starts and trees, culinary and medicinal herbs, and California native plants for folks who want to grow their own food. Nursery sales help fund other programs the group offers.

Across the street the urban garden center’s community farm is full of summer bounty, such as tomatoes, greens, and amaranth, in one large collective plot that everyone works on together. Around half the harvest is given free to people in need, such as the homeless and elderly, the remainder is distributed among the volunteers who help the garden grow. There’s a pen with chickens and ducks too.

The organization runs the cheapest produce stand in town; every Tuesday afternoon it offers organic greens, fruit, eggs (supplied by a local jewelry store owner who raises hens), and such from the usual farmers’ market suspects at cost. Note to readers: The stand serves all comers and appreciates those of means rounding up or kicking in a little extra to support the program.

And on Sundays the nursery-garden provides ongoing free farm classes, such as how to grow food in an urban setting, cooking produce from the garden, and beekeeping for beginners.

Daniel Miller has served as the executive director of this worthy edible experiment for 16 years. It is largely a labor of love. Miller is only paid a few months of the year, he supplements long days at Spiral Gardens with edible landscaping jobs and says he foregoes many standard accoutrements of modern life such as a home he can call his own, a car, and new clothes.

The 42-year-old father, whose Twitter handle describes him as “a gritty optimist dedicated to the compassionate reimagination of how we live,” resides in Oakland. We chatted at the nursery while Miller repotted plum trees.

1. Who are you trying to reach with this project?

We believe everyone has a right to fresh food that’s good for you. Studies show that in areas where people lack access to fresh produce, sometimes called food deserts, there’s a higher rate of negative health outcomes such as heart disease, stroke, and diabetes. On average, poor people of color live 10 years less than those who have access to such food. Our target audience is the poor and hungry.

2. What are some of the obstacles you run into trying to reach your target community?

There are many. We have to first let people in the community know we’re here. We find doing door knocks and leaving fliers an effective way to get the word out. We also educate people about why it’s important to eat farm fresh food. Some people automatically think that organic food is too white, chi-chi, and expensive.

3. Do you feel like you’re making a difference in the neighborhood?

I do.  The farm stand is a positive, wholesome  presence that attracts people. I’m convinced we’ve lengthened some people’s lives. I know we’ve put a lot of plants out there in this community that will provide food for years to come. And we fill a safe, social aspect in the area, we give people something positive to do. I’ve seen people who are homeless, drug abusers, mentally ill, or with other severe obstacles to overcome benefit from our produce and programs–even start growing their own food. That’s really rewarding.

Even in seemingly small ways we have an impact: Our heirloom tomato starts have become the impulse buy down the street at Biofuel Oasis.

With the downturn in the economy all kinds of people are showing up at Spiral Gardens. People are really struggling and there’s an increased interest in growing and making your own food.

4. What are the rewards of this kind of work?

I’m proud that we exist. And that every day we’re doing something to help people eat well and grow food that has a positive impact on their health and environment. I think any time you can get people to interface with soil, which we all need for our survival, that’s a good thing. We have a dozen or so hardcore volunteers who water the plants, weed the farm, feed the animals, and generally keep everything going, though on a farm project day 50-100 people may show up to help. We’ve cultivated a great sense of community.

5. Are there any local food activists you admire?

The people who live at Fort Awesome, which is located not far from here on King Street. It’s a collective house with solar panels, graywater recycling, an urban farm with fruit trees and chickens. It’s across the street from my son’s school (Malcolm X), sometimes when I drop him off I’ll see a wayward chicken crossing the street.

6.  What’s next for Spiral Gardens?

I’d like to see the nursery expand — it would be great if we could be a full-service, one-stop nursery, selling people their soil when they pick up their plants. I’d also like us to become completely self-sustaining. And it would be great to get paid for what we do. I want to offer more classes and serve more people in need. There’s always more we could do, it just takes resources.

Spiral Gardens, located at 2850 Sacramento St. is open to the public Tuesday, Wednesday, and Saturday from 10 am until 5 pm. The Produce Stand is open Tues. from 3 pm until 7 pm. The farm (around the corner on Oregon St.) is open summer Sundays from 11 am until 5 pm. Volunteers welcome to drop in during opening hours.

Each Friday in this space food writer Sarah Henry asks a well-known, up-and-coming, or under-the-radar food aficionado about their favorite tastes in town, preferred food purveyors and other local culinary gems worth sharing.

Henry muses about food matters on her blog Lettuce Eat Kale. Follow her on Twitter and become a fan of Lettuce Eat Kale on Facebook.

If you have an idea for a Berkeley Bites interview, send your suggestion to sarahhenry0509@gmail.com or leave a comment here. To read previous Berkeley Bites profiles click here.

Photo by Lance Iverson/SF Chronicle

The new athletic complex isn’t finished, Memorial Stadium is behind steel trusses as part of a multi-year retrofit project, and other things are out of whack at UC Berkeley’s sports program.

But Cal athletes are making do by training at a new 14,000 square foot rectangular tent set up along Centennial Drive, the San Francisco Chronicle reports.

Athletes from 11 sports –including the lucrative men’s football and basketball teams, (football averaged a $6.85 million profit each of the last five years and basketball brought in $2.17 million annually during that period), as well as the women’s money-losing basketball team –now have the use of a yurt and six temporary wood structures. (Okay, four of the six structures are reserved for the football team.)

The complex, in Strawberry Canyon next to the Witter Sports field, boasts a large weight room, locker room, and a number of offices for coaches.

The buildings were set up as part of Berkeley’s $321 million renovation of the aging Memorial Stadium. Work has already begun on the new training complex next to the stadium, and some preliminary work has started on the Coliseum. As soon as the Cal Bears finish their fall 2010 season, workers will jump in for a more complete overhaul of the stadium. The Bears will play in PacBell Park in San Francisco for the 2011 season and will move back into the stadium in 2012.

Cal’s sports teams have come under increased scrutiny in recent months as a panel revealed that the university’s $70 million sports program runs a deficit. The university subsidized the school’s 29 sports team by $13.7 million last year, at a time when money for academic programs was cut.

UPDATE: Herb Benenson, Cal’s assistant athletic director for media relations sent Berkeleyside an email to say the men’s basketball team is not using the temporary tent. The team is working out, as normal. at Haas Pavilion.

Three UCB students awarded environmental scholarships [UC Berkeley]
New plan to revitalize lower Sproul Plaza [Daily Californian]
Berkeley Art Museum shows haunting pictures [SF Chronicle]
Richard Paul Fink to debut as Wotan in Berkeley opera [SF Chronicle]
Looking beyond the car battery to the electric grid [Article Ant]

Photo: San Francisco Bay by Dougsmi/Berkeleyside Flickr pool.

The cast of Parenthood

Every since NBC debuted its hour-long drama, Parenthood, people in Berkeley have pointed out all the ways it’s not, well, Berkeley.

Complaints are many. There are too many white characters, and not enough people of color. No one is gay. There are too few Priuses in the show, and not nearly enough Peet’s Coffees. That high school in the series looks nothing like Berkeley High. And how in the world can the parents afford that sprawling Craftsman-style house that appears to be surrounded by a half-acre of land? (Well, for one, it’s really located on the back lot of Universal Studios.)

Chuck Barney, the television critic for the Contra Costa Times, is down in Los Angeles this week for the annual TV critic’s summer press tour. He got a chance to speak with Lawrence Trilling, an executive producer, about the “Berkeleyness” of the show.

“We want to be accurate,” Trilling told Barney for an article in the Contra Costa Times. “We want to reflect the local flavor and the diversity and open-mindedness of the community. Some people tell us that we’re doing a good job. Others don’t think so.”

The producers have been using special effects to make the show feel more like Berkeley, said Barney. For example, last season, there was a shot of two of the main characters on the UC Berkeley campus. Well, those actors never set foot at Cal. A film crew came up from Los Angeles and shot footage of the campus, according to Barney. The producers then filmed the actors in front of a green screen and digitally inserted them in the shot. Voila! They looked like they were standing in front of Wheeler Hall.

Berkeleyside wanted to know more about the “Berkeleyness” of Parenthood and through a little investigative reporting, located Barney as he navigated his press junket. (Okay, we sent him an email.)

“I don’t get the feeling that capturing the true flavor of Berkeley is real high on their priority list,” Barney emailed Berkeleyside. “I asked, for example, if he had any Bay Area natives on the writing team and he didn’t think they did. At one point, a set designer giving the tour talked about the Craftsman bungalow being in Marin and I corrected her, saying it’s Berkeley … And another producer talked about how they designed the shoe factory after an actual building in LA. I asked him how hard would it have been to design it after an actual building in the Bay Area and he just kind of shrugged. (I will say, though, that the sets do have a real Bay Area flavor to them. They “scouted” the Bay Area before building them — and the house boat is designed after an actual houseboat in Sausalito).

Before the first season started, I talked to executive producer Jason Katims, who had a lot of good things to say about how they wanted to reflect the Berkeley/East Bay because it has a very different look and vibe than what we’re used to seeing on TV. Obviously, though, there are limits to what they can do without being here — or from here. It’s ironic because Katims is also involved with “Friday Night Lights,” which is filmed in Austin, Tx. and does have a very distinct Texas feel to it. I think they believe that, in most cases, there are SoCal sites that can stand in for Berkeley/the E. Bay) … I don’t know if I’m completely accurate her, but I don’t even think it was Katims’ idea to base the show in Berkeley. I think that came from an NBC exec — can’t recall her name right now — who either went to Cal, or had a daughter who went to Cal.”

Still, Barney points out, maybe Berkeley residents ought to be grateful for what they have:

“Mark it down as a wasted opportunity. It’s not very often, after all, that the East Bay gets to shine in prime time. Yes, a “Parenthood” film crew will occasionally drop by this season, says Trilling, but only to shoot exteriors. ….

On the other hand, maybe we should just be glad the show is returning this fall. Early ratings, after all, were mediocre, and for a while there, “Parenthood” looked like a goner.”

Little Stinker on July 27, 2010

Who knew watching flowers unfurl was so much fun?

UC Botanical Gardens has sent out word that another titan arum plant is blooming. Officials found a new bud on the plant affectionately called The Little Stinker on July 16. Last night, the bud started to open and it should be fully open today, July 29.
The Botantical Garden will stay open until 7 pm to accommodate extra viewing.

The plant, officially known as the Amorphophallus titanum or titan arum, is so fascinating because of its rare flowering structure and a reproduction method that attracts insects with the illusion of decay in appearance, temperature and odor. It is also nicknamed the Corpse Flower.

Little Stinker on July 28

According to UC Botanical Garden, fewer that five titans bloom each year in the US. Two have bloomed this year at UC, however.

As an added bonus, the parking meters by the Botanical Garden are broken, so parking is free.

For more information, visit the garden’s Facebook page or website.

Patxi Lopez

The president of the Basque region of Spain came to UC Berkeley on Tuesday to preside over two formal agreements between the university and the region, take some photos, and browse through the diary kept by Juan Batista De Anza, a Basque descendant, who led an overland trip from Mexico to San Francisco in 1776.

Patxi Lopez, 50, his wife, and a delegation of 34 Basque officials and journalists, only spent three hours on campus, but got a glimpse into both the past and the future in that brief time.

Lopez came to attend the signing ceremony of a contract between the School of Information* and Orkestra, the Basque Institute of Competitiveness, as well as another agreement between the physics and chemistry departments and the University of the Basque Country.

Lopez arrived at Cal around 9 and went to the Chancellor’s Office in California Hall, where he was greeted by Vice Chancellor Graham Fleming, Carlos Bustamante, a professor of molecular and cell biology, and AnnaLee Saxenian the dean of the school of information, and others.

Lopez then met with Charles Faulhaber, the director of the Bancroft Library, who showed him the diary De Anza kept in 1776 when he traveled from Mexico to Monterey and then up to San Francisco. They also looked at a manuscript of sermons in Spanish and Basque written by a Basque priest in one of the California missions around 1800, pictures and rubbings of aspen tree carvings by Basque sheepherders in Nevada and a set of pamphlets on the Spanish Civil War, focused on the bombing of the town of Guernica by the German Condor Legion.

After lunch at the faculty club, Lopez departed.

Lopez, who was elected president or lehendakari of the Autonomous Region of the Basque Country of Spain in May 2009, is a member of the Spanish Socialist Party. He does not believe in a Basque state separate from Spain.

The visit to UC Berkeley was part of an extended trip to the Bay Area. Lopez also visited San Francisco, Stanford University, and Silicon Valley, where he stopped by Google and Twitter. (see the Flicker photos of his visit).

Photo of Cal snapped by Lopez

Lopez wasn’t the only dignitary in Berkeley this week. Queen Noor of Jordan, aka Lisa Halaby, spent a few days at the Claremont Resort this week. The staff was ordered to keep mum about her visit, but few could miss the enormous white bus belonging to her entourage parked at the hotel.

* UPDATE 5:25 pm: AnnaLee Saxeninn. dean of the School of Information, had this to say about her school’s agreement: “Our agreement was with an Institute at Deusto University (which is based in the Basque region) called Orkestra; they call themselves the Basque Institute of Competitiveness. Our agreement says that we would like to pursue joint research on issues related to information and regional economic development, but has no specific projects or funding attached to it.”

Alta Bates to teach how to make healthy breakfast choices [Bauman College]
How UC Berkeley might make fuel from the sun [Technology Review]
Open Science movement holds conference in Berkeley [Open Science]
Get a heads up on UC’s schedule [Daily Planet]
Philanthropist establishes his 24th scholarship at UC Berkeley [UCB News]

Photo: Garden at Walnut and Virginia by Syzmk S./Berkeleyside Flickr pool.