Category: Berkeley

The sign outside the Berkeley Friends Meeting House:

"We utterly deny all outward wars and strife, and fightings with outward weapons, for any end, or any under pretence whatever; this is our testimony to the whole world. The Spirit of Christ by which we are guided is not changeable, so as once to command us from a thing as evil, and again to move unto it; and we certainly know, and testify to the world, that the Spirit of Christ, which leads us into all truth, will never move us to fight and war against any man with outward weapons, neither for the Kingdom of Christ, nor for the kingdoms of this world."

–From "A Declaration of the Harmless and Innocent People of God, called Quakers," presented to King Charles II, 1660

If you want to cut down on the syllable count, just say “night walk.” A storm has been headed our way all day long. And after all the family business of the evening had been transacted, by which I mean dinner (I’ll admit it: frozen pizza), 1.0 episodes of regular old-school (i.e. Michael Moriarty era) “Law and Order” and .5 units of “Law and Order: Special Victims Unit” on cable, “The Daily Show,” which did a nice bit on Falluja’s impact on the future of Iraqi democracy, and the beginning of the KTVU’s “10 O’Clock News,” which had thrilling local jet-fuel-pipeline-rupture video to show, I headed out for a short walk before the rain. Stopped at the open-till-midnight drug store and bought some unneeded “athletic energy” (or ‘fancy candy”) bars for future consumption. Headed north on the streets that cut across the lower part of the ridge that marks the beginning of the hills here in North Berkeley (our house is about 120 feet above sea level, and the high point on the walk, as I know from my new mapping software, was 400 feet). All was quiet, except for the airline flights climbing as they headed east on all-night trips (if the wind shifts to the south or southwest as the storm moves in, the air traffic pattern will reverse and we’ll have incoming flights descending to the west over the hills). Got home just as the rain really started to come down.

I’ve been spending too much time inside lately. So I went out early this afternoon on a long, long walk. Up into the hills to the north of campus, then skirted the campus to the east, but below the top of the ridge. Then walked back down south of campus, near the Claremont Hotel, then walked back across town home. About 10 miles, in all, and I was back just as it was getting dark. There was a football game at Memorial Stadium. Cal continued its great season by coming back to win against Oregon. Wherever I was along the hike, I could hear at least the muffled roar of the crowd. I found one spot as I came down from the hills — must have been the fourth quarter by then — where I could hear so clearly that I could pick out individual voices. Also, wherever I went, a big red blimp with a Saturn logo was orbiting overhead. I think if I’d gone to the very top of the hills I might have gotten to a spot where I was higher than it was; didn’t quite make it that far, though. The blimp became my frequent photographic subject.

Also saw a natural phenomenon I’d never seen before: I happened to look up at a big pine tree that had the sun directly behind it. At the tips of several boughs, there was a very light veil of something — spider webs, maybe even a vapor of some kind — waving in the air. Another hiker came by and I asked whether she could see it to and whether she knew what it was. She said she hadn’t seen anything like it before, and wondered if the streamers were actually little clouds of insects (also, while we were standing there, a big red-tailed hawk came directly overhead, very low, and landed in a tree behind us; immediately, a little kestrel appeared and chased the hawk away, dive bombing the bigger bird as it sailed out over a canyon). I continued walking, and came to another line of trees silhouetted by the sun. Sure enough: the same little misty wisps of nearly nothing were dancing above some of the boughs. Looking closely, it did look like they were insects. I got a couple of bad pictures of what it looked like. The best I could do with my little camera, I think. Strange that in all my years walking around here I’ve never seen this before.

Election Day starts here: Tom was up early so he could get to his post as poll helper on time. Alameda County, where we live, is so strapped for election workers that they’ve signed up high school kids to supplement the usual cast of polling-place characters, usually a bunch of retired people from the neighborhood. The pay is 80 bucks for a day that runs from 6 a.m. to 9 p.m. I think for Tom, the cash is an incentive. But I think the real motivation is just to be involved in what’s going on. When we drove up to his polling place, at his old middle school, about six or eight blocks from here, he was talking about how great it was to see all the campaign signs. I’ll be going up there to vote in the next half hour or so. Then probably more phonebanking. Then we’re going to have people over to watch the returns tonight.

One of my favorite candidate posters in this year’s ultra-genteel Berkeley City Council race. “Norine — competent and professional.” Which actually makes you wonder what her opponent, the one whose slogan is “incumbent,” has been up to. (Actually, the opponent/incument is named Betty Olds, and she has been associated with mean-spirited and semi-daffy behavior in the past.)

Update: Despite her daring vows of competence and professionalism, Norine Smith got just 18 percent of the vote. District voters delivered a mandate (80 percent) to the Betty “Slipshod, Slapdash” Olds.