3/8/08
sisters
3/9/08
Just under ten years ago,
17 of the roughly 450 mail-deliveries on this route were residences--the
remaining 400-some were commercial. Now, there are about 100 residential
and about 350-400 commercial deliveries.
The pattern over the last
8-10 years, then, has been away from commercial toward residential
occupancy. But, this is not in any sense a "scientific survey."
And it is my understanding,
after talking to developers, investors, and realtors that the
best return on building-investment down-here comes from putting
up units of a mix of roughly 75% residential and 25% commercial
use--all else being equal.
This afternnon, EBMUD is
repairing the water-seepage on Pardee between 7th and 8th, pretty
much in front of Andrew and Kersten's condo--at just after 4 PM
the air-hammers began. Water has been bubbling up from cracks
in the middle of the street for weeks now.
Just after this photo was
taken a main burst. Unlike construction crews, the EBMUD crew
knew exactly where the shut-off valve was and closed it within
minutes.
two EBMUD workers take a
brief break to pose
Ah, mixed use.
All those large trucks, often
18 wheelers, beat the shit out of our old streets and our infrastructure.
"Cal women hold on for win over Oregon:Bears
jump out to a big first-half lead, only to see it dwindle before
finally prevailing by seven points" reports the Times' Jennifer Starks
With the Cal women's basketball
team up 16 points midway through the first half of Saturday's
Pac-10 Tournament quarterfinal matchup against Oregon, one could
forgive an outsider for peeking inside HP Pavilion and thinking
a blowout was about to ensue.
It would be a safe assumption
considering one team had spent most of the season parked in the
top 10, while the other endured a seven-game losing skid and finished
seventh in the conference. It would also be well off the mark."
"Survey says Bay Area is the greenest in
countryBerkeley among top 10 most environmentally friendly cities
in U.S.
writes our Janis Mara.
Who's
the greenest of them all? If a new national survey is any indication,
it's the Bay Area.
Berkeley, Oakland and San
Francisco made the top 10 of a national survey by Popular Science
magazine rating the country's 50 most environmentally friendly
cities. Concord and Fremont made the top 50 -- numbers 43 and
44, respectively -- as did 13 California cities, enough to turn
other states green with envy.
The survey combined data
from the U.S. Census Bureau and the National Geographic Society's
Green Guide, which collected survey data and government statistics
for American cities with more than 100,000
people in categories including air quality, electricity use and
transportation habits.
Portland, Ore., grabbed the
top spot, while San Francisco was No. 2, Oakland No. 4 and Berkeley
No. 7.
'It is wonderful to receive
recognition for the pioneering work we are doing in Berkeley to
reduce energy use and build a green economy,' Berkeley Mayor Tom
Bates said in an e-mail to MediaNews. 'Most importantly, this
ranking recognizes that the people of Berkeley are already making
progress in changing habits, finding
innovative and creative ways to reduce their energy use, and saving
the planet.'
Boz, damn, there ARE drugs
in our drinking water.
"AP Probe Finds Drugs in Drinking Water.
A vast array of pharmaceuticals - including antibiotics, anti-convulsants,
mood stabilizers and sex hormones - have been found in the drinking
water supplies of at least 41 million Americans, an Associated
Press investigation shows.
To be sure, the concentrations
of these pharmaceuticals are tiny, measured in quantities of parts
per billion or trillion, far below the levels of a medical dose.
Also, utilities insist their water is safe.
But the presence of so many
prescription drugs - and over-the-counter medicines like acetaminophen
and ibuprofen - in so much of our drinking water is heightening
worries among scientists of long-term consequences to human health."
"End to the Good Times (Such as They Were)
"opines David Leonhardt
in the New York Times.
"If history is a reliable
guide, the recession of 2008 is now unavoidable.
The dismal jobs report released
Friday showed overall employment to be lower than it was three
months ago. Every time such a slump has occurred since the early
1970s, a recession has followed - or already been under way.
And if the good times have
really ended, they were never that good to begin with. Most American
households are still not earning as much annually as they did
in 1999, once inflation is taken into account. Since the Census
Bureau began keeping records in the 1960s, a prolonged expansion
has never ended without household income having set a new record."
"A Family Tree of Literary Fakers" writes the New York Times' Motoko Rich.
"When the news emerged
this week that Margaret Seltzer had fabricated her gang memoir,
'Love and Consequences,' under the pseudonym Margaret B. Jones,
many in the publishing industry and beyond thought: Here we go
again.
The most immediate examples
that came to mind were, of course, James Frey, the author of the
best-selling 'Million Little Pieces,' in which he embellished
details of his experiences as a drug addict, and J T LeRoy, the
novelist thought to be a young West Virginia male prostitute who
was actually the fictive alter ego of Laura Albert, a woman now
living in San Francisco.
But the history of literary
fakers stretches far, far back, at least to the 19th century,
when a slave narrative published in 1863 by Archy Moore was revealed
as a novel written by a white historian, Richard Hildreth, and
into the early 20th, when Joan Lowell wrote a popular autobiography,
'Cradle of the Deep,' about her colorful childhood aboard a four-masted
ship sailing the South Seas; in fact, she had grown up almost
entirely in Berkeley, Calif."
"The city of Berkeley
offered a $15,000 reward Friday for information leading to the
conviction of the person who killed a man this week in south Berkeley.
Ceron Burns, 25, of San Leandro
was shot to death about 11:30 p.m. Monday in front of an apartment
building at 1615 Russell St., police Sgt. Mary Kusmiss said.
Burns was found lying next
to a parked car, Kusmiss said. He had been shot numerous times.
Burns was killed about seven
blocks from where Brandon Terrell Jones, 29, of Berkeley was shot
to death Feb. 24 on the 1500 block of Harmon Street. No arrests
have been made in either case.
Anyone with information about
either slaying is asked to call homicide investigators at (510)
981-5741." reports Henry K. Lee of the San Francisco Chronicle.
Wonder how long it will be
before someone's gunned down on this side of San Pablo? Found
out last week that you owe more on your home than you have in
it in equity.Just saw $3.99.9 a gallon for Premium at a local
gas station? Dropping markets got you down?
Marsha Wacko recommends you
watch "Murphy's Romance.'
Check it out!
3/10/08
I just spent some time studying
the staff report to the "Planning Commission, Increased Flexibility
for West Berkeley Key Goals, Actions and Polices: December 12,
2007."
I am taken by its detailed
nature, but am also reminded that if detailed economic planning
worked, the Soviets would rule the world and we would be reduced
to a market for cheap vodka and those damn chachki eggs, within
an egg, within an egg, within an egg.
And, while reading this report,
I now-and-then referred to the "color rendering of the [west-Berkeley]
zoning map" which appears on February
Scrambled Eggs as part my 2/25/08 post. The map is, in fact,
not helpful . Indeed, it is non-helpful, for it obscures the dynamic
of west-Berkeley dividing us into static, even rigid sections.
Simply, it ain't real. It is an abstraction that freezes our day-to-day
interaction and interplay, so obscuring vision.
3/11/08
The quarter-block-or-so between
Parker and Carleton on 10th has been cleared of structures, ready,
apparently, for building.
Our David Snipper emails
Hi Ron.
Regarding your recent question in Scrambled Eggs "Wonder
how long it will be before someone's gunned down on this side
of San Pablo?"
If memory serves, there was a shooting on the corner of 10th
and Grayson about ten or so years ago which resulted in the death
of the shootee.
David
About the same time, a shootee
collapsed in the arms of Dave-the-mailman on the corner of 8th
and Grayson.
David also sent this photo
"Is Salvia the Next Marijuana?" asks Jessica Gresko of the AP.
"On Web sites touting
the mind-blowing powers of Salvia divinorum, come-ons to buy the
hallucinogenic herb are
accompanied by warnings: 'Time is running out!' and 'stock up
while you still can.'
That's because salvia is
being targeted by lawmakers concerned that the inexpensive and
easy-to-obtain plant could become the next marijuana. Eight states
have already placed restrictions on salvia, and 16 others, including
Florida, are considering a ban or have previously.
"Cal helpless against Wiggins, Stanford"
reports Jennifer Starks
in our Times.
"Cal women's basketball
coach Joanne Boyle sat motionless on the bench, her legs crossed
and a blank expression on her face as confetti rained down from
the rafters at HP Pavilion.
Boyle was stunned, and based
on what fourth-ranked Stanford had just done to her Bears on Monday
night, she had every reason to be.
Despite its ability to advance
to the Pac-10 Tournament title game for the first time, No. 8
Cal looked completely out of sorts once it got there. The Bears
trailed from the start en route to swallowing a painful 56-35
loss to adetermined Cardinal team that showed it had no interest
in sharing conference supremacy."
"Jobs get tossed out
of stores" reports CNN.
"An economic downturn is eroding jobs in
Columbus, a city where a vibrant retail landscape had been a key
driver of economic growth.
As U.S. job growth hits the
skids, a shrinking labor market means one thing for the nervous
retail workers
who reside in Columbus, Ohio: Their job is on shaky ground.
The nation's labor market
lost a much larger-than-expected 63,000 jobs last month.
Retailing was hit hard, accounting
for 34,000 job cuts across department stores, building supplies
and garden equipment sellers and auto dealers."
"Central banks plan emergency cash:Five
central banks have announced co-ordinated action" reports BBC NEWS
Central banks, including the Bank of England, have announced a
latest round of co-ordinated auctions to provide extra liquidity
to financial markets.
The US Federal Reserve is
leading the action, while the European Central Bank (ECB), and
central banks of Canada and Switzerland are also involved.
They follow on from similar
emergency auctions in December and January.
The aim is to cut the cost
of lending between banks, which has been inflated by the credit
crunch."
3/12/08
Sophie Gross now has a showing
at Luka's Taproom and Lounge, West Grand and Broadway, Oakland.
She has watercolors and oils up thru May. Check them out, and
check out Sophie, she's a server at 900 GRAYSON.
"Fed takes on More Risk"
reports today's Wall Street Journal in their "Financial
Insight."
"The Federal Reserve
suddenly is a big player in the mortgage business. It plans to
allow primary dealers--the major banks and brokers--to swap mortgaged
backed securities, or MBS, for as much as $200 billion of Treasury
bonds."
If I read this correctly
you can swap securities backed by subprime mortgages for United
States Treasury bonds--up to $200 billion.
But nobody in the current
market wants these securities . . . am I missing something here?
(Oops, . . it's a finessed
bailout by our Central Bank!)
(us)
it's a village
in Austria, too.
3/13/08
" 'Juno Baby'
brings Tchaikovsky (and Bach and Beethoven) to tots" reports
Jackie Burrell in our Times.
"Young tots sit mesmerized
by flickering images on the TV screen in households across the
country. Some watch 'Sesame Street,' learning their ABCs and hearing
Muppet-style opera. Other children gaze at
'Baby Einstein,' watching images flash by to an electronic Mozart-ish
accompaniment.
But little Juno Adelman gets
her Mozart from a different source -- the piano, the CD player
and her parents' line of Emmy Award-winning children's DVDs starring
Fraggle Rock-style puppets and real classical music performed
by real musicians.
On this particular drizzly
day, those puppets are draped over the family's grand piano, nestled
among stacks of sheet music and the family's 2007 Emmy Award.
The statue forms a glitzy capstone on an unorthodox career path
that brought Belinda Takahashi, an avant garde composer at the
Eastman School of Music, and her husband, a New York City hedge
fund financier turned film producer, to the hills of Marin County.
Along the way, their musical
progeny -- the 'Juno Baby' DVDs -- have become the newest, hippest
kids on the children's video block."
"Building Reuse Is Green, Says Leading
Architect" reports
Richard Brenneman in our Planet.
"Want to build green?
The best way isn't to build at all, but to retrofit an existing
building, says architect and green building expert Sandra Mendler.
'In general, it's always
better to reuse a building' than to tear it down and build a new
one, Mendler said.
The reason? Over a 30-year
span, 20 percent of a building's energy consumption is embodied
in the building's physical structure itself, she said.
The San Francisco architect
was speaking Friday as a member of a panel on Green Building and
Development at the UC Berkeley Energy Symposium."
This would make Rich Robins
Potter Creek's leading Green developer!?
"EPA tightens clean air rules:Regulators
predict more Spare-the-Air Days; environmentalists say standards
don't go far enough"
writes Denis Cuff in our Times.
"The federal Environmental
Protection Agency tightened the public health standard for smog
Tuesday, but many environmentalists and California officials said
the change does not go far enough to protect children, the sick
and elderly from air pollution."
"Neighbor's foreclosure hurts you:Lost
homes lowers values, makes refinancing difficult across community"
writes the AP's Alan Zibel.
"If your neighbors have
lost their homes, you could pay the price when you try to sell
or refinance -- even if your credit is good.
Neighbors matter when it
comes to putting a price on homes. Appraisers use comparable sales
data to calculate the value of a home, a number lenders require
for selling and refinancing. And comparable sales in neighborhoods
plagued by foreclosures knock down the value of homes.
The problem, which makes
it much more difficult for borrowers to pull cash out of their
homes, is another sign of how a sick housing market infects the
entire economy, one neighborhood at a time. If borrowers are unable
to refinance at lower rates, that could cause even more foreclosures,
real estate experts say."
"The next shoe to drop in housing:Rising
foreclosures and big losses at Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac are
making it harder for people with good credit backgrounds to get
a traditional mortgage"
reports CNN.
"The credit crunch has
finally hit the traditional mortgage market.
Investors are now shunning
mortgage-backed securities issued by government sponsored enterprises
Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, which have been critical in keeping
the real estate market from completely
falling apart.
Some fear this development
will make it harder for people, even those with strong credit
histories, to get a home loan.
'Even if you have good credit,
you don't know if they are going to give you a loan or not,' said
Joseph Mason, a senior fellow at the Wharton School of the University
of Pennsylvania.
And for those who can still
get a loan, the tremors in the mortgage-backed securities market
has made loans more expensive for borrowers.
As the prices of mortgage-backed
securities have fallen, their yields have risen, leading to higher
mortgage rates."
"The next bubble:priming the Market for
tommorrow's big crash "
from Harper's, is long and detailed and perceptive.
A Bob Kubik link.
A "right-of-center-view" of our City,
the Marines and Code Pink.
But from where-ever-on-the-spectrum,
it's not flattering.
But it IS funny--almost on
the floor, funny.
(Actually, it's a video-clip
from "The Daily Show," Monday night 3/10.)
Quote of the week
"For 80,000 dollars,
I hope she was a swallower not a spitzer."
3/14/08
On Thursday, March 20 at
6:30 PM WEBAIC (West Berkely Artisans & Industrial Companies)
is presenting the Forum, "The West Berkeley Plan & Sustainibility:
Economy, Environment, and Equity," dealing with "the
future of West-Berkeley's industrial and cultural sectors."
I notice their handout mentions
that Raquel Pinderhughes is one of the speakers. Ms Pinderhughes
is the author of Green
Collar Jobs: An Analysis of the Capacity of Green Businesses to
Provide High Quality Jobs for Men and Women with Barriers to Employment.
The report was
funded by the City of Berkeley Office of Energy and Sustainable
Development.
1/24/08 I
posted
Though I
am sympathetic to the report, Green Collar Jobs, it is
terminally flawed. A beautifully presented study with color-photos,
charts, graphs and text, I initially asumed it accurately presented
the issues. Sadly, it may or may not. As conceived, it
is simply the author's opinion. For such a survey to be really
relevant, it must use random sampling of an accurately defined
population--it must select at random the people interviewed and
it must make sure those talked to are somehow involved with the
issue. The twenty-one employers interviewed were self-selected
from a group of originally over two-hundred, and just how the
thirty-six interested employees were selected is unclear. Really
bad social -science!
The report Green Collar Jobs cost us $8,000--$3,000 for the
work and $5,000 for printing. It is my understanding the work
is on-going.
In The Day,
I was a grad-student at Cal in Sociology and did research at The
Survey Research Center.
"Bear Stearns gets emergency funds:Bear
Stearns is one of the best-known US Wall Street firms" reports BBC NEWS.
"US bank Bear Stearns
has got emergency funding, in a move that raises fears that even
the top Wall Street names are suffering amidst the credit crunch.
JP Morgan Chase will provide
the money to Bear Stearns for 28 days with the Federal Reserve
of New York's backing.
JP Morgan is also trying
to get long-term financing for Bear Stearns.
Bear Stearns has been at
the centre of the US mortgage debt crisis, and there has been
speculation that it was struggling to fund its daily business.
Bear Stearn's creditors have
become progressively concerned about Bear's exposure to mortgages,
said BBC business editor Robert Peston.
'The rescue of Bear Stearns
demonstrates that the worst of the global credit crunch is not
yet behind us,' he said.
Bear Stearns shares dropped
as much as 53% to $28 on the news."
"Boss rues collapse of hedge fund Carlyle
Capital Corp" reports
BBC NEWS.
"Private equity giant
Carlyle Group has pledged to 'stand by' investors in the firm's
failed billion dollar hedge fund, the
Financial Times has reported.
The firm's co-founder David
Rubenstein told the newspaper that he was working on ways to address
clients' losses.
His comments came after Carlyle
Capital Corporation (CCC), a unit of Carlyle Group, said it was
unable to pay back its debts and may be liquidated.
Some $600m (£295m)
of clients' money will be lost if the fund fails.
The fund is the latest casualty
of the widening credit market crisis."
"Intensifying Credit
Fears Sink Stocks" writes the AP's Tim Paradis.
"Stocks plunged early
Friday as investors worried that a plan to ease a liquidity crisis
at Bear Stearns Cos. indicates how
severe credit troubles have become. Each of the major indexes
lost more than 1 percent; the Dow Jones industrials fell about
140 points.
Investors were busy examining
the plan from JPMorgan Chase & Co. and the New York Federal
Reserve to provide secured funding to Bear Stearns for an initial
period of 28 days. The move offers Bear Stearns relief from a
sudden liquidity crunch."
Monday, a DW TV reporter
from the Frankfurt exchange said, off-hand, that there were rumors
on-the-floor of a US bank failure.
Tuesday, a CNBC financial
reporter told the Today Show interviewer that without Federal
Reserve help we could see bank-runs.
Not much reading between-the-lines
is necessary to conclude that, without central bank help, we are
facing bank closures.
3/15/08 and following
are here
Eternally useful
links
In our rainy season you can
find more information about our current weather conditions than
is good for you at www.wunderground.com
Want to see weather coming
in, going out, beautiful sunsets, and much, much more? Check out
http://sv.berkeley.edu/view/
This very hip site was in an email from reader and contributor,
Tony Almeida. Read Tony's Jimi Hendrix story on the only page that routinely gets
more hits than Scrambled Eggs.
Richmond
Ramblers' motorcycle club member, Cliff Miller emails A very
useful link
If you ever need to get a
human being on the phone at a credit card company or bank, etc.,
this site tells you how to defeat their automated system and get
you to a human being within a few seconds.
http://gethuman.com/us/
Markets
is not just a reference for Berkeley-Hills radicals with 1.5 mil
homes and considerable portfolios.
Our Planning Department is
here.
Our Berkeley
PD Site with crime statistics and more is here.
Crime Log
for 94710 is here
This site is NOT affiliated
with Berkeley PD.
Take time to report
crime!
All reports
of crime-in-progress should first go to Berkeley PD dispatch--911
or non-emergency, 981-5900. THEN make sure you notify EACH of
these City people.
The contacts
are below:
Officer Andrew
Frankel, Berkeley PD - 981-5774 AFrankel@ci.berkeley.ca.us
Angela Gallegos-Castillo,
City Mgr Off - 981-2491 agallegos-castillo@ci.berkeley.ca.us
Ryan Lau,
aid to Darryl Moore - 981-7120 rlau@ci.berkeley.ca.us
Darryl Moore,
City Councilman dmoore@ci.berkeley.ca.us
More
Scrambled Eggs & Lox, here
and
Stories about Berkeley and stories about recorded-music
are at
Journal of Recorded Music 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11
ronpenndorf@earthlink.net
The original owner
of all scanned material retains copyright. The material is used
only to illustrate