A new food cooperative opened on November 15 in Berkeley. The Berkeley Student Food Collective is open to anyone, student or not. Both members and non-members can shop, members receive a discount in exchange for work hours. I’ve shopped there a couple times, and the store is quite well stocked. It’s just a small storefront, so don’t expect to get eight types of rice and thirty varieties of coffee, but they do have a fairly decent selection of produce, bulk, packaged, and refrigerated items.Stop by the store, 2440 Bancroft Way, Berkeley, CA.

In the early 80′s I was a member of Cooperative Connections at UC Berkeley, another small cooperative. We were in the basement of the student union, so we had a bit less public exposure. I wish them well, and encourage Berkeley folks to shop there, student or not.

Here’s a animated logo I created, showing the ’80′s and ’10′s logos morphing:

Update: December 2010: I have created a web site, uprisingsbakersbook.org, where I’m adding recipes and other pages from the book. I’m working on permissions from the publisher and bakeries, so I’m starting with bakeries that are closed. Look for weekly updates.

In 1983, the Cooperative Whole Grain Educational Association published Uprisings; The Whole Grain Bakers’ Book. The Foreword of the book is at the bottom of this page.

As a former collective member of Uprisings Baking Collective in Berkeley (one of the contributors to the book), I didn’t want this book and organization to just fade away. There were 32 collective/cooperative bakeries who contributed to the book, many of which are still in business. Collected below are a list of links to the bakeries that are still operating. If I missed any, please fill in the form at the bottom so I can update the page.

The book is a valuable resource for bakers and wannabe bakers. One of its strengths is the index—including the traditional categories of major ingredients and types of foods, but also including a special section on Recipes by Special Dietary Characteristics such as No Eggs or Dairy; No Dairy (but contains Eggs); No Eggs (but contains Dairy); No Wheat; No Sweetener, or Fruit-sweetened; No Added Oils or Fats (may contain high-fat ingredients); No Baking; and No Salt, or Optional Salt.

While Uprisings is out of print, many used copies are available. If you can’t find it at your local bookstore, try abebooks.com using the search box here. abebooks.com is a network of independent bookstores around the country, your independent alternative to Amazon.com.

No passing in circle

The traffic circles in Berkeley neighborhoods have created confusion for many car drivers. One of the difficulties is knowing how to interact with bicycles. The Bike Friendly Berkeley Coalition’s email chat list has been discussiong what signage could be placed at the circles to help drivers understand how the circles work. One of the main concerns is to let drivers understand that they cannot pass bicycles in the circles (there’s just not enough space). I developed the sign on the right as a draft sign to provide an image of what a sign could look like. Click on the image to see it larger.

And here’s a second version, including a pedestrian:

Traffic circle sign #2

It was interesting to discover that in the US, it seems that all pedestrian sign icons show the pedestrian walking from one side to the other. I found a pedestrian walking forward on a German sign.

I’m sure that if either of these gets selected by the city, professional graphic artists will modify them using standard images and font (mine approximate standards).

The San Francisco Bay Area’s 15th Annual Bike to Work Day will take place on Thursday, May 14, 2009. Bike to Work Day is the premier bicycling event taking place in all of Northern California with all nine Bay Area counties participating in the celebration. The event is just one day of many events taking place in May as part of National Bike Month.

Complete details here: http://btwd.bayareabikes.org/

BCA is holding a Statewide Special Election Discussion on Sunday May 3, 2009 from 4:00 t0 6:00 pm.

Invited speakers

• State Senator Loni Hancock
• State Assemblymember Nancy Skinner
• State Assemblymember Sandre Swanson

North Berkeley Senior Center, MLK at Hearst (map).

For more information, call 510-54-0816. BCA; PO Box 9932; Berkeley, CA 94709

Information on the May 19th Statewide election:

• California Secretary of State: http://www.voterguide.sos.ca.gov/
• League of Women Voters: http://ca.lwv.org/lwvc/edfund/elections/2009may/
• SmartVoter.org: http://smartvoter.org/2009/05/19/ca/state/ballot.html

Find your polling place here: http://smartvoter.org/

Positions of Selected Left/Liberal/Progressive Organizations:

• California Democratic Party: No positition posted on web site.
• California Retired Teachers Association: Yes: 1A, 1B, 1C, 1F; No position: 1D, 1E
• California Teachers Association: Vote Yes on 1A-1F
• Green Party: No position on county or statewide sites.
• Peace and Freedom Party: Vote No on 1A-1F

No, this doesn’t mean you’ll be able to email him. I just talked him into letting me post some of his poetry to the web. You can read his poetry at EarthCommUNityILoveYou.org. I’ll be adding quite a bit over this next week, so keep coming back to read more.

From Eric McCaughrin at East Bay Bicycle Coalition:

Another great clip from Streetfilms. This time, they show how removing parking spaces around intersections (“Daylighting”) can greatly increase visibility for pedestrians and cyclists. Even better: the reclaimed space can be used for low-cost bike parking.

In Berkeley and other Bay Area communities, similar kinds of treatment have been done with pedestrian bulb-outs. These bulb-outs are hideously expensive (particularly when there are drainage issues). Simply plopping bike racks in that space accomplishes the same thing, without the huge cost.

If the video doesn’t show up above, you can see it at StreetFilms website here:

www.streetfilms.org/archives/daylighting-make-your-crosswalks-safer/

]]> http://trampleasure.net/lee/index.php/105/feed 0 http://trampleasure.net/lee/index.php/88 http://trampleasure.net/lee/index.php/88#comments Wed, 14 Jan 2009 00:47:52 +0000 Lee http://trampleasure.net/lee/?p=88

Diane Thomas died December 1^st at her Berkeley home after a long struggle with cancer. The celebration of Diane’s life will be held on Saturday, January 17th at 10 a.m. at Pacific School of Religion (MAP), where she was on staff for nine years. The public is invited.

I worked with Diane in the UC Nuclear Weapons Conversion Project and other peace groups in the late 70′s, and continued to see her over the years, including a few times at parent nights when her kids where at Berkeley High School during the years I was teaching there.

“Diane was a shining person. She was loving and loveable, fully committed and conscientious in her activism, and dedicated to helping make a better life for all people. Those who knew her thought of her as one of the best human beings any of us had ever encountered. She was one of my heroes.”
-Daniel Ellsberg, anti-war activist and long-time friend of Diane Thomas.

Donations can be made in Diane’s name to the Iraq Initiatives Project, a major new effort for peace in Iraq that Diane supported and helped start in the last year of her life. Visit the Ecumenical Peace Institute web site to donate.

Well, it’s “almost” November of an even year, which means it’s time for Berkeley City Council elections. I’m endorsing Jesse Arreguin, and helping his campaign by weaving his web site, jessearreguin.com.

If you live in District 4 (Dona Spring’s district), I hope you will support and vote for Jesse. If you have any questions, please email me or visit his web site (the web site is still in the infancy state, but should be much fuller by the end of the weekend).