“You don’t need a Weatherman to know which way the wind blows”

SAN FRANCISCO

Lee Heidhues 8.23.2026

Currently the blogger is totally immersed in the book “Dangerous Dirty Violent and Young” written by Zayd Dohrn, son of Bernardine Dohrn and Bill Ayers.

There’s a long history and the blogger has been digging deep. Discovering details drawing out decades of committed sometimes violent ‘radical‘ political involvement. All with a mission to disrupt the American political system.

The story of Bernardine Dohrn is an apocryphal tale of America in the second half of the 20th century.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bernardine_Dohrn#

Bernardine Rae Dohrn (née Ohrnstein; born January 12, 1942) is a retired American law professor and a former leader of the far-left militant organization Weather Underground in the United States. As a leader of the Weather Underground in the early 1970s, Dohrn was on the FBI’s 10 Most Wanted list for several years. She remained a fugitive, even though she was removed from the list. After coming out of hiding in 1980, Dohrn pleaded guilty to misdemeanor charges of aggravated battery and bail jumping.

Dohrn became one of the leaders of the Revolutionary Youth Movement (RYM), a radical wing of Students for a Democratic Society (SDS), in the late 1960s. Dohrn with ten other SDS members associated with the RYM issued, on June 18, 1969, a sixteen-thousand-word manifesto entitled “You Don’t Need a Weatherman to Know Which Way the Wind Blows”, in New Left Notes. The title came from Bob Dylan‘s song, “Subterranean Homesick Blues“.[7] The manifesto stated that “the goal [of revolution] is the destruction of US imperialism and the achievement of a classless world: world communism.”[8]

There’s a blogger angle to Bernardine Dohrn’s story. She found refuge in Sausalito, CA during her fugitive days. Sausalito CA is a town north of San Francisco where the blogger lived during his high school and college days. ‘Dangerous Dirty Violent & Young’ (pg.186-187)

The Weather Underground was a radical left militant organization responsible for bombings of the United States Capitol, the Pentagon, and several police stations in New York, as well as the Greenwich Village townhouse explosion that killed three of its members.[15]

Trailer for the 2002 Academy Award nominated documentary “The Weather Underground”

Dohrn and her husband Bill Ayers turned themselves in to authorities in 1980. While some charges relating to their activities with the Weathermen were dropped due to prosecutorial misconduct[24] (see COINTELPRO), Dohrn pleaded guilty to misdemeanor charges of aggravated battery and bail jumping[25] for which she was put on probation.[26] After refusing to testify against ex-Weatherman Susan Rosenberg in an armed robbery case,[24] Dohrn was held in contempt of a grand jury[27] and served seven months in prison.[28] Shortly after turning themselves in, Dohrn and Ayers became legal guardians of future San Francisco District Attorney Chesa Boudin, the son of former members of the Weather Underground Kathy Boudin and David Gilbert, after the couple were convicted of murder for their roles in a 1981 armored car robbery.[29]

In 1994, Dohrn said, “I still see myself as a radical.”[33]

In 2008, Dohrn and Ayers resurfaced into news headlines as presidential candidate John McCain and his running mate Sarah Palin publicly denounced the ties between Ayers and then-presidential candidate Barack Obama.[34][35]

In a November 4, 2010, interview, Dohrn described the political “right” in the U.S. as racist, armed, hostile, and “unspeakable”. Referring to the August 28, 2010 Restoring Honor rally which was promoted by Glenn Beck and held at the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C., Dorhn said, “You have white people armed, demanding the end to the [Obama] presidency.” She has also asserted that “the real terrorist is the American government, state terrorism unleashed against the world.”[36][better source needed]

Dohrn and Ayers were invited to the June 18, 2026, exclusive Grand Opening of the Obama Presidential Center in Chicago and reportedly seated in the third row.[37]

Top photo: Bernardine Dohrn (L) and Bill Ayers take in the Obama Presidential Center’s grand opening on Thursday, June 18, 2026. Photo: Justin Kaufmann/Axios

Last Drive for San Francisco entitled motorists hits the road

SAN FRANCISCO

Text and photos: Lee Heidhues 8.22.2026

Sunset District merchant Albert Chow who tried to blame proponents of Sunset Dunes Park for the 2024 fire and subsequent break ins at his hardware story militantly vowed to a gathering of true believers trying to destroy the twice approved park. He will keep fighting until his cause prevails.

Albert Chow and San Francisco Chronicle photographer Yolanda James

San Francisco voters will be voting on Sunset Dunes Park for the third time in four years this November 3rd. Proposition ‘G’. Car driven  foes of the park were able to qualify for the ballot because of the absurdly low signature requirement. Only 10,000 registered voters in a City with over 500,000 voters are required to qualify a ballot measure. Foes of the Park took advantage of this absurdity and harvested the necessary signatures.

It must be noted that foes of the Park to the point of boredom have tried to destroy Sunset Dunes Park. At the ballot box, in the Courthouse, legislative and administrative bodies.

So if the voters are bored by all this they need not look further than the group of entitled zealots who refuse to admit they’ve lost. The proponents of Proposition G.

“Failed attempts to kill Sunset Dunes” – No on Prop G campaign kickoff – 8.16.2026

It’s no ‘Compromise’. It’s destruction of Sunset Dunes Park

San Francisco Supervisor Alan Wong appointed to office by Mayor Daniel Lurie, whose District 4 contains Sunset Dunes Park, has bet his incumbency on the destruction of Sunset Dunes Park
The crowd at the Yes on Prop G aka Destroy Sunset Dunes Park was generally the older generation
Rich Corriea, former Captain of the Richmond District Police Station, is an outspoken opponent of Sunset Dunes Park.

The blogger has thrown in a little car music for the entertainment of the readers. It hurts too much to cry having to deal with this “for the 500th time” as a Sunset Dunes Park proponent declared recently. A couple of ‘old school’ rock ‘n roll songs may help ease the hurt because ‘old school’ is definitely what the cadres who want to destroy Sunset Dunes Park can correctly be labeled.

‘Drive My Car’ – The Beatles Rubber Soul 1966
A gathering of Barnacles on a Saturday morning

Barnacle. Stay in one fixed spot for life.

‘Drive My Car’ – The Rolling Stones Voodoo Lounge 1994

TOP PHOTO; The Destroy Sunset Dunes Park posse stands before an inflatable romper room

History is made as San Francisco unveils 2 mile Sunset Dunes Park

A true Israeli ‘terrorist’ Ben-Givir. Minister of National Security

SAN FRANCISCO

Lee Heidhues 8.21.2026

Perhaps no Israeli leader, aside from Benjamin Netanyahu is more responsible for Israeli criminal behavior than Itamar Ben-Gvir.

The blogger keeps reading reports about Itamar Ben-Gvir. Israel’s Minister of National Security. A man who thinks Palestinians are sub-human; has happily posted videos of himself tormenting protesters who sailed to Palestine to support the people of Gaza and published a video of himself touting ‘gallows’ for Palestinians.

It comes as no surprise that much of the world now treats Israel as a ‘pyrrhia’ State. Its reprisal actions since October 7, 2023 when Hamas brutally murdered 1195 mostly Israelis October 7 attacks – Wikipedia has been labeled ‘Genocide’ by many world leaders and nations.

It is genuinely appalling to learn of how truly despicable is his conduct. The latest inflammatory comments being his wish that 30-40 Palestinians be killed each day.

Call to kill Gazans

In August 2026, he called for killing “30 to 40” people in Gaza every night while speaking to a former hostage, Rom Brasalavski, on a podcast. Ben-Gvir clarified that the killings should go beyond those who “pose an immediate threat”, stating that “there are people there who are not worthy of life… they’re not even people.”[92]

His statement was condemned by the Chancellor of Germany, Friedrich Merz, stating that Ben-Gvir’s statement was “inhumane”, “unacceptable” and a violation of international law.[93] Jean-Noël Barrot, France’s foreign minister, also condemned Ben-Gvir’s remarks, calling them “intolerable” and “inhumane”.[94] United Nations secretary-general António Guterres called the remarks as “appaling”, “dehumanizing”, “outrageous”, and “dangerous”.[95] Guterres’ spokesman, Stéphane Dujarric, called his remarks as “abhorrent” and “scandalous”.[96]

Ben-Gvir has also called for the ‘hanging’ of Palestinians and showed off the proposed site in a video.

Israel continues to commit genocide, atrocity crimes by deliberately targeting Palestinian children, UN independent commission finds | UN News

Last year, the commission concluded that “Israel had committed genocide against the Palestinian group in the Gaza Strip, found that the intense scale and systematic nature of the Israeli military operations have continued, resulting in unprecedented death, injury and trauma of Palestinian children.”

Here are some findings in the commission’s latest report:

  • Israel has killed 20,000 children and injured 44,000 more since 7 October 2023
  • Severe physical and mental injuries, mass trauma, orphanhood, separation, disability, repeated displacements, starvation and the collapse of education and healthcare have erased childhood and will continue to affect children in Gaza throughout their lives
  • Palestinian children have been arrested and subjected to torture and other severe forms of mistreatment in Israeli prisons and detention facilities, with no information on their whereabouts
  • Israeli security forces have used sexual violence against children as part of the collective shaming and oppression, entrenched within a prolonged, ethnic, gendered and intergenerational pattern of occupation and hostilities

Itamar Ben-Gvir – Wikipedia

Ben-Gvir is a settler in the Israeli-occupied West Bank; according to the BBC, his “political background lies in Kahanism—a violently racist movement that supports the expulsion of Palestinians from their lands”. He has a long history of anti-Arab activism, leading to dozens of indictments and at least eight convictions of crimes including incitement to racism and support for, as well as possession of propaganda of, a terrorist organization (the now-illegal Kach political party). As a lawyer, he is known for defending Jews accused of Jewish extremist terrorism in Israeli courts.

Ben-Gvir is known for being a provocateur and has attracted headlines for a variety of reasons: threatening Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin on live television in 1995 shortly before his assassination; having had a portrait in his living room of Baruch Goldstein, a Jewish terrorist and mass murderer; calling in 2019 for the expulsion of Arab citizens of Israel who are not loyal to the state;[2] inciting violent clashes between Jewish settlers and Palestinians in the East Jerusalem neighbourhood of Sheikh Jarrah in 2021; and making highly controversial visits to the Temple Mount, where the al-Aqsa Mosque is located, in 2023 and 2024.

Itamar Ben-Gvir (Hebrew: אִיתָמָר בֶּן גְּבִיר [itaˈmaʁ benˈgviʁ]; born 6 May 1976) is an Israeli politician and lawyer who has served as the minister of national security since 2022, except for a two-month gap in early 2025. He is the leader of Otzma Yehudit (“Jewish Power”), an Israeli far-right, Kahanist and anti-Arab party which won six seats in the 2022 legislative election and is part of the thirty-seventh government of Israel.

Top photo: Itamar Ben-Gvir and Benjamin Netanyahu


Holst’s The Planets – Mars, the Bringer of War
Gustav Holst’s The Planets, Op. 32, is a seven-movement orchestral suite composed between 1914 and 1917, inspired by astrology rather than astronomy. The first movement, Mars, the Bringer of War, sets a tone of relentless aggression and military force Wikipedia+1. performed appropriately by the United States Marine Band

Bibliocide—attacks on written word—tactic of totalitarians and terrorists.

SAN FRANCISCO

Lee Heidhues 8.18.2026

Censorship and book burning are a sad historical phenomena. Recent history has found this activity in countries around the world. Nazi Germany, the Khmer Rouge in Cambodia and Russian obliteration of Ukrainian libraries.

America is not immune. The House Un American Activities Committee (HUAC) strove to ban books in overseas libraries which were deemed “too Communist” and “nonconformist”. Even in the midst of the 21st century certain localities in America have successfully moved to ban books from libraries and schools. Book Bans – PEN America

American Book Banning: Trends, Causes, and Impact

Book banning in the United States has surged in recent years, with both schools and public libraries facing unprecedented levels of censorship.

Scale of the Problem
PEN America’s 2025 report found 6,870 book bans enacted in the 2024–25 school year across 23 states and 87 public school districts, affecting nearly 2,600 authors, illustrators, and translators PEN America. This is the highest number of bans in a single school year ever recorded. The American Library Association (ALA) documented 4,235 unique titles challenged in 2025, with 5,668 books actually banned from libraries, plus 920 restricted through access controls American Library Association. These bans disproportionately target works by authors of color, LGBTQ+ authors, and books addressing racism, sexuality, gender, and history PEN America+1.

Who Is Driving the Bans
ALA data shows that 92% of challenges in 2025 were initiated by pressure groups, government officials, or decision-makers, not individual parents American Library Association. This reflects a coordinated political and activist push to influence school and library curricula.

Excerpted from The Wall Street Journal 8.18.2026

https://www.wsj.com/opinion/russia-burns-books-and-sacks-libraries-in-ukraine-31326e56?st=DMN2Zg&reflink=desktopwebshare_permalink

Bibliocide—attacks on the written word—is a common tactic of totalitarians and terrorists. The Nazis burned books in Germany in the 1930s, as did the Khmer Rouge in Cambodia in the 1970s. Bosnian Serbs destroyed Sarajevo’s National and University Library in 1992, and in 2015 ISIS devastated Mosul Central Library.

Nazi book burnings – Wikipedia The Nazi book burnings were a campaign conducted by the German Student Union (German: Deutsche Studentenschaft, DSt) to ceremonially burn books in Nazi Germany and Austria in the 1930s. The books targeted for burning were those viewed as being subversive or as representing ideologies opposed to Nazism. These included books written by Jewish, half-Jewish, communist, socialist, anarchist, liberal, pacifist, and sexologist authors among others.[1] The initial books burned were those of Karl Marx and Karl Kautsky,[2] but the burned books came to include other authors, including the works of Albert Einstein, Helen Keller, H.G. Wells, and effectively any book incompatible with Nazi ideology.
During the Khmer Rouge regime (1975–1979), the government carried out a systematic campaign to destroy books, newspapers, and other printed materials as part of its broader cultural and political purge. This was part of Pol Pot’s “Year Zero” policy to erase Cambodia’s pre-1975 history, culture, and intellectual life, replacing it with a Maoist-inspired agrarian socialist society

The Ukrainian Culture Ministry says Russia has damaged or destroyed 906 libraries since 2022. Numerous cases of book burning and library sacking have been documented. Among them: In 2022 the Petro Mohyla Church library was burned in Mariupol. Books were burned in Rovenky in 2023. Yulia Kakulia-Danyliuk, a librarian in Kapytolivka, has described the destruction in that village: “Everything was smashed and broken, books were scattered everywhere. There was filth.”

Books in Ruins: How Russia attacks Ukrainian culture

Kapytolivka holds particular significance, having been home to Volodymyr Vakulenko, a poet and children’s book author, who was abducted and murdered by Russian troops in 2022. When the librarian returned after the village’s liberation, only 4,500 of 16,500 books remained. She found books on Ukrainian culture and history in the toilets, covered in human waste. “All of them had been soiled. That was done deliberately.”

Oleksandra Matviichuk, head of the Center for Civil Liberties (which was awarded the 2022 Nobel Peace Prize), describes the destruction of books as “part of a broader genocidal policy of Russia. We know from history that the burning of libraries accompanied genocides throughout the centuries as an erasure of someone else’s identity. Putin openly says that there is no Ukrainian nation, no Ukrainian language, no Ukrainian culture.”

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Center_for_Civil_Liberties_(human_rights_organization)

The Center for Civil Liberties (Ukrainian: Центр Громадянських Свобод, romanized: Tsentr Hromadyansʹkykh Svobod) is a Ukrainian human rights organization led by the Ukrainian lawyer Oleksandra Matviichuk.[2] It was founded in 2007,[3][4] with the purpose of pressuring Ukraine’s government to make the country more democratic.[5][6] The organization was awarded the 2022 Nobel Peace Prize, jointly with Ales Bialiatski and Russian organization Memorial.[3][7]

In America the book burning mania took hold in the early Cold War era.

HUAC and the Era of “Book Burnings”

During the 1950s, the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC) and other anti-communist forces in the U.S. government were linked to reports of book burnings at American-funded overseas libraries. These libraries, numbering about 230 and holding nearly two million books, served millions of visitors annually and were intended to present a “balanced” view of the United States The New Republic.

The Context

  • HUAC’s role: Established in 1938, HUAC targeted alleged communists and “subversive” activities. While it investigated individuals, its influence extended to shaping cultural and informational policy abroad Wikipedia.
  • Overseas libraries: Originally founded in Latin America in 1942–43 to model public libraries abroad, they emphasized free access to all printed materials. By the Eisenhower era, their purpose had shifted toward promoting U.S. perspectives and discouraging “non-conformity” The New Republic.
  • Targeted content: Books deemed “too communist” — including works by or about communists — were removed from shelves. This included literature banned under dictatorships the U.S. had fought against, such as in Germany, Austria, Japan, Korea, and Trieste The New Republic.

Political Backing

  • Eisenhower administration: Reports indicated that State Department directives, sanctioned by Secretary of State John Foster Dulles, ordered U.S. libraries abroad to remove such books. President Eisenhower publicly distanced himself from these orders, but his administration’s actions were tied to HUAC’s anti-communist agenda The New Republic.
  • McCarthyism: Senator Joseph McCarthy, though not directly involved with HUAC, was part of the broader anti-communist climate that enabled such censorship Intellectual Freedom Blog.
America doesn’t burn books. It bans them as neo-Nazi sentiment takes hold

Sunset Dunes Park “Here we are again for the 500th time”

SAN FRANCISCO – SUNSET DUNES PARK

Lee Heidhues – Text and Photos – 8.16.2026

Sunset Dunes Park is located at the West End of San Francisco at the Pacific Ocean shoreline.

“Here we are again for the 500th time.” Lucas Lux, spokesperson for Sunset Dunes Park. Sunset Dunes – Wikipedia

That may be an exaggeration. But not by much. Advocates for Sunset Dunes Park by the Pacific Ocean in San Francisco have won every time at the ballot box, in the courtroom, legislative and administrative agencies.

Next November San Francisco voters will for the third time in four years be at the ballot box to decide the fate of Sunset Dunes Park. On both previous occasions in 2022 and 2024 the voters said YES to the Park. In 2024 Proposition K prevailed handily with a nearly 55 percent majority citywide.

Nonetheless opponents of Sunset Park obtained sufficient signatures to put the issue on the ballot, again. In San Francisco only 10,000 valid voter signatures are required. San Francisco is a City with over 500,000 registered voters as of 2024. It is not a difficult task.

Bloggers Liz and Lee campaign for Sunset Dunes Park in summer 2024

Sunset Dunes is a 2 mi (3.2 km) long public urban park next to Ocean Beach on the West Side of San Francisco, California.[1] The park is located on a former location of the Great Highway between Lincoln Way and Sloat Boulevard. The 77-acre (31 ha) park opened on April 12, 2025, making it the largest pedestrianization project in California’s history.[2][3][4] The park converted 17 acres of roadway into separated walking and cycling paths with the coastal side for slower speeds and the inland side for faster speeds.[5] The park has art installations, exercise equipment, log benches and hammocks.[6]

Failed attempts to kill Sunset Dunes

A hardy group of 50 or more people gathered this foggy Sunday on Sunset Dunes Park in defense of the coastal treasure. Amongst the crowd were State Senator Scott Wiener, former San Francisco Supervisor Joel Engardio and former head of the Metropolitan Transit Agency Jeff Tumlin. All were instrumental in fighting for Sunset Dunes Park, approved by the voters in 2022 and, again, in 2024.

Since the voter approved creation of Sunset Dunes Park Supervisor Joel Engardio was recalled from office due to his support for Proposition K, and his replacement Alan Wong has backed returning vehicular traffic to the Great Highway. At the same time, the park is among the city’s most visited, especially among District 4 residents.[25][5]

Blogger fully attired in blue 💙 takes in the action
‘Song for our Ancestors’ – Steve Miller Band – SAILOR album 1968 Sailor (Steve Miller Band album) – Wikipedia

Crime stories. When the written word hits the Big Screen

SAN FRANCISCO

Lee Heidhues 8.14.2026

There’s more to life than politics. Thank Goodness.

It’s movie day for the blogger. The New York Times recently published a list of the top crime novels of the 21st century. And followed up on that compendium which, in its opinion, are the best cinematic interpretations of these novels.

The blogger has viewed a number of these films and read several of the books.

Attached below are the ‘Trailers’ for several of these films adapted to the Big Screen.

The blogger is featuring ‘The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo at the top. It is the shortest in duration and the best of the group with its cover of the Led Zeppelin classic ‘Immigrant Song’ by Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross.

Excerpted from The New York Times 8.14.2026

The New York Times Book Review’s recent list of the 50 best thrillers of the 21st century — as voted by authors, editors, librarians and other book lovers — contained a wide range of thrillers, from serial killer novels to spy fiction. A look at the list, however, makes one commonality abundantly clear: Great thrillers — which are plot-driven by definition — lend themselves well to adaptation. More than half of the titles on the list have been turned into movies or TV shows. Here’s a look at the best.

Top Photo: Josh Brolin in ‘No Country for Old Men‘

Assassination by Chile on Embassy Row – 50 years later

SAN FRANCISCO

Lee Heidhues 8.13.2026

Few people remember except those who are interested in human rights and followed America’s lethal involvement in the events which led to the overthrow of Salvador Allende and the vicious aftermath of the democratically elected government in Chile on September 11th, 1973.

Chile’s Salvador Allende – October 1970

Assassination of Orlando Letelier – Wikipedia

On 21 September 1976, Orlando Letelier, a former Chilean diplomat and outspoken opponent of dictator Augusto Pinochet, was assassinated in Washington, D.C., United States by a car bomb planted by agents of the Chilean secret police (DINA) as part of Operation Condor. Letelier, who had been living in exile in the U.S., was killed alongside Ronni Karpen Moffitt, a colleague at the Institute for Policy Studies.[1] Declassified U.S. intelligence documents indicate that Pinochet personally ordered the assassination,[2] which was intended to eliminate a leading voice of Chilean resistance and disrupt international opposition to his regime.

San Francisco Chronicle – March 14, 2004

Excerpted from The Nation – 7.16.2026

At Sheridan Circle on Massachusetts Avenue in Washington, DC, a small monument marks the spot where former Chilean ambassador Orlando Letelier and his young colleague Ronni Karpen Moffitt were killed by a car bomb planted by agents of the Chilean secret police on the morning of September 21, 1976.

Roni Karpen Moffitt

The monument is inscribed with the words “Justice – Peace – Dignity”; every year dozens of friends and colleagues gather at the circle to honor the lives of the two extraordinary people whose conscientious pursuit of those goals were cut short by an act of international terrorism.

This September, the annual gathering will carry a special meaning—and not only because it is the 50th anniversary of the assassination. It comes after a Chilean judge has called new attention to the case of Ronni Karpen Moffitt, finalizing a 15-year judicial effort to bring long-overdue accountability for her death as a victim of the Pinochet regime’s ruthless repression, rather than as collateral damage in the regime’s effort to eliminate its leading international critic, Orlando Letelier. Fifty years after she was murdered, there is finally a degree of justice for Ronni Moffitt, and a significant step toward closure in the infamous Letelier-Moffitt case.

The book, titled Assassination on Embassy Row, discusses the politics of Chile leading up to the election of Allende, the subversion of the Allende government by big business, Chilean fascists, right wing US citizens, and the Nixon White House under the direction of Henry Kissinger. By detailing these connections it serves as a useful history of Chile immediately before and after the 1973 coup.

Eventually, the FBI identified two DINA operatives, American-born Michael Townley and Maj. Armando Fernandez Larios, as leading suspects. The US then sought the extradition of DINA’s top two officers, Manuel Contreras and his deputy Pedro Espinoza—which General Pinochet personally blocked. A comprehensive CIA review of its own intelligence on the car bombing concluded that there was “convincing evidence that President Pinochet personally ordered his intelligence chief to carry out the murder” and that Pinochet “decided to stonewall on the case to hide his involvement and, ultimately, to protect his hold on the presidency.”

The Guardian – 10.8.2015

On June 15, 2026, Chile’s special magistrate for human rights, Judge Paola Plaza, finally issued her verdict.

In her 138-page ruling, Judge Plaza found three former high officials of the Chilean secret police, DINA, guilty for killing Moffitt. Brig. Gen. Pedro Espinoza, DINA’s former deputy director for operations, was sentenced to 15 years; Gen. Raul Iturriaga, a high-ranking officer in DINA’s “Exterior” department, was also sentenced to 15 years, as was retired Brig. Gen. José Zara Holger, also a director in DINA’s international operations division.

https://www.thenation.com/article/world/ronni-moffitt-orlando-letelier-pinochet-chile-assassination-human-rights-justice

Top photo: Chilean Ambassador to the United States Orlando Letelier during the administration of Salvador Allende

Trump thought Iran war would be easy as saying “You’re fired!”

SAN FRANCISCO

Lee Heidhues 8.12.2026

Donald Trump seriously believed the war on Iran would be over quickly.

Instead he has taken the World into economic discord with no end in sight.

Trump just thought this just another episode of The Apprentice where he could dispatch Iran with the words, “You’re fired!!”

Excerpted from Foreign Affairs – August 12th 2026

EMMA ASHFORD is a Senior Fellow in the Grand Strategy Program at the Stimson Center and the author of First Among Equals: U.S. Foreign Policy in a Multipolar World.

Donald Trump campaigned for a second U.S. presidential term on a promise to end wars, not start them.

And for the first year after his return, there were indications that he might make a real break with the status quo that has led Washington to overextend itself. He pushed the United States’ European allies to spend more on defense, promoted peace talks between Russia and Ukraine, and pursued a cautious détente with China that has dialed down tensions over Taiwan.

Eighteen months later, however, the United States is bogged down in a new war in the Middle East. Although the U.S. military has enjoyed tactical successes, Washington has not achieved any kind of meaningful strategic victory; in certain respects, Iran exerts more power now than it did in February.

The DonaldTrump way

Nonetheless, Trump has shied away from making diplomatic compromises. Just like his nemesis, U.S. President Barack Obama, Trump promised Americans that he would extract the country from pointless “forever wars” in the Middle East and then proved unable to do so.

But the fact that the United States again became mired in a Middle East conflict is even more surprising today, because over the past two decades, the American public as well as many U.S. leaders have firmly concluded that such wars are mistakes.

At heart, structures and incentives pull Washington back, repeatedly, to avoidable quagmires. For starters, military action is easy for U.S. presidents to initiate. Since 1991, U.S. leaders have gotten in the habit of deploying force to secure even the most minor U.S. interests. The short-term costs and risks of using force against a smaller, distant state or nonstate actor often appear small—most Americans can go about their day-to-day lives without even realizing their country is at war—and Congress has largely become willing to cede its constitutional oversight.

https://www.foreignaffairs.com/guest-pass/redeem/92meLFc_TI8

Did America really need to A-Bomb Japan in August 1945?

SAN FRANCISCO

Lee Heidhues 8.9.2026

This afternoon the blogger watched a very sobering documentary, “Atomic People”. The story of America’s atomic assault on Japan as seen and told by Japanese civilians, young at the time who experienced the horror.

Atomic cloud over Nagasaki, Japan – 8.9.1975

Today is the 81st sad anniversary of America dropping the atomic bomb on Nagasaki, Japan just three days after obliterating Hiroshima on August 6th, 1945.

Atomic People – Wikipedia Atomic People is a 2024 British television film about Hibakusha, the survivors of the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The film premiered on BBC Two on 31 July 2024.[1][2][3] The programme received critical acclaim for its interviews with survivors and its treatment of nuclear history. It won the British Academy Television Award for Best Specialist Factual at the 2025 British Academy Television Awards.[4][5] At the 2025 Venice TV Awards, Atomic People won the Special Jury Prize.[6]

There is no doubt that America, the only country to have used atomic weapons, hastened the Japanese surrender.

The fact remains to this day that hundreds of thousands of Japanese perished.

The toxicity of the radiation caused by these blasts resulted in the death and maiming of thousands more.

The conventional wisdom is that the destruction visited on the Japanese, at least in the minds of most Americans, was a legitimate action. It resulted in surrender by Japan.

81 years later history has not been so kind.

Nfront_page_1945-08-10Download
front_page_1945-08-07Download

https://www.c-span.org/program/white-house-event/president-truman-speech-after-the-bombing-of-hiroshima/229938

President Harry Truman’s statement following America dropping the atomic bomb on Hiroshima.

Outside Lands and Altamont. Golden Gate Park now and what was not then

SAN FRANCISCO

Lee Heidhues 8.8.2026 UPDATED

This August weekend is the now annual Outside Lands three day concert at the Polo Fields near the blogger’s home. 75,000 fans a day are expected to attend.

The hordes at Outside Lands – 8.7. 2026

Golden Gate Park was not always a cash register for corporatization.

One only need look back at rock and roll history to learn that in 1969 the Rolling Stones wanted to give a “free” concert in Golden Gate Park. San Francisco officialdom, mainly in the person of Mayor Joe Alioto, wouldn’t let it happen.

Instead the Stones concert was moved to Altamont Speedway in the East Bay which turned into a total disaster for the musicians and hundreds of thousands of fans. The tragic event is memorialized forever in the classic documentary ‘Gimme Shelter’ which is available on multiple streaming outlets and as a DVD in The Criterion Collection.

The days of San Francisco looking askance at massive concerts in park spaces are a thing of the past. What counts in the current Big Tech, AI monied metropolis is anything is permitted as long as it brings in money.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Altamont_Free_Concert

The Altamont Speedway Free Festival was a counterculture rock concert in the United States, held on Saturday, December 6, 1969, at the Altamont Speedway outside of Tracy, California.[2][3][4][5] Approximately 300,000 attended the concert,[2][4][5] with some anticipating that it would be a “Woodstock West“.[6] The Woodstock festival had taken place in Bethel, New York, in mid-August, almost four months earlier.

The event is remembered for its use of Hells Angels as security and its significant violence, including the killing of Meredith Hunter and three accidental deaths: two from a hit-and-run car crash, and one from a drowning incident in an irrigation canal.[4][5] Scores were injured, numerous cars were stolen (and subsequently abandoned), and there was extensive property damage.[7][8] During the Rolling Stones’ headline performance, violence erupted close to the stage, resulting in the fatal stabbing of Hunter, a spectator. MusicRadar noted that the tragedy, captured on film in Gimme Shelter, eclipsed the event and marked a dark ending for the 1960s counterculture.[9]

Outside Lands (festival) – Wikipedia

A “love letter to San Francisco,”[2] the festival is named for the city’s western neighborhoods, which were known as The Outside Lands in the 1800s. The 80-acre festival grounds feature art installations and exhibits by local artists and San Francisco-centric areas devoted to cannabis, activism and sustainability. With stages named after San Francisco locations including the Panhandle, Lands End, Twin Peaks, the Sutro and the Presidio, the San Francisco Weekly wrote that Outside Lands “was about the city, rather than just in it.”

Outside Lands, formerly known as the Outside Lands Music and Arts Festival, is a three-day music, art, food, wine, beer and cannabis festival held annually in San Francisco’s Golden Gate Park. Multi-genre and multi-generational, it is the largest independently owned music festival in the United States. It was founded in 2008 by Another Planet Entertainment, Starr Hill Presents, and Superfly.

Golden Gate Park is not a cash register for greedy promoters