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.
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‘
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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]
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.
Ever since becoming a San Francisco Supervisor in 2021 Connie Chan has been subjected to vicious sexist racist red baiting attacks.
Now as a candidate for Congress representing San Francisco as successor to iconic Speaker Emerita Nancy Pelosi she is the target of a scurrilous AI campaign by her opponent State Senator Scott Wiener.
Scott Wiener thinks this is just the normal campaign activity. It’s not. “Falsities fraught with racist and sexist overtones” is how Connie Chan’s campaign describes the AI attack.
SF Gate – 8.6.2026
Excerpted from SF Gate 8.6.2026
State Sen. Scott Wiener, a San Francisco Democrat running for Congress who is backed by Anthropic, just launched a chatbot of his opponent — and his team used Claude to do it.
The website, called ConnieChan.ai, launched on Monday morning and sarcastically refers to itself as “the world’s first AI trained to say no to anything you ask.” It prompts the user to type in a question, and the bot will spit out an answer impersonating Wiener’s opponent, District 1 Supervisor Connie Chan: “Bring me an idea and I’ll explain why it can’t, shouldn’t, and won’t happen,” it says.
ConnieChan.AI – an attack production by Scott Wiener
The website, called ConnieChan.ai, launched on Monday morning and sarcastically refers to itself as “the world’s first AI trained to say no to anything you ask.” It prompts the user to type in a question, and the bot will spit out an answer impersonating Wiener’s opponent, District 1 Supervisor Connie Chan: “Bring me an idea and I’ll explain why it can’t, shouldn’t, and won’t happen,” it says.
Wiener has received over $4 million for his congressional campaign, and an Anthropic-funded PAC called Public First has committed $500,000 to support his candidacy. Anthropic also backed a tech regulation legislation package that Wiener authored last year. It requires big tech companies like Anthropic, OpenAI and Meta to publish safety reports when they release new AI products.
‘ConnieChan.ai’ billboard at 25th Avenue and Geary Blvd. San Francisco – photo Lee Heidhues
Wieners’s team told SFGATE that they spent $20,000 on two billboards in San Francisco promoting the chatbot. They will run until the end of the month.
Top photo: Congressional candidate Connie Chan cited by San Francisco Police speaking out for workers at San Francisco International Airport – May 2026
This campaign reminds the blogger of the classic Western Once Upon a Time in the West and the theme ‘Man with a Harmonica’.
Totally brutal and callous. Broadcaster Greg Papa purged by the station for which he hosted one of its most popular Sports Talk shows for decades.
Papa has been most prominently the voice of the Oakland (now Las Vegas) Raiders and most currently the San Francisco 49ers. His signature touchdown calls are well known to football fans.
Radio station KNBR – 680AM and 1050FM This takes the cake for corporate brutality. Dumping an icon when he is struggling mightily to survive. This sends a message. There’s no humanity in the broadcast industry whatsoever.
It comes as a total shock to the blogger that his employer is oblivious to the outrage which can be expected from the rabid and dedicated sports audience.
He is best known as the radio play-by-play caller for the Raiders and the host of Chronicle Live on NBC Sports Bay Area.[3] He, Garry St. Jean, and Kelenna Azubuike used to do the in-studio analysis for all the Golden State Warriors regular season games on NBC Sports Bay Area. He is the younger brother of deceased Philadelphia sportscaster Gary Papa. Papa is a three-time California Sportscaster of the Year Award winner.[4]
Excerpted from The San Francisco Chronicle – 8.5.2026
KNBR has laid off longtime Bay Area voice Greg Papa, 63, who was diagnosed with leukemia just over a year ago and returned to his North Bay home last month after a life-threatening 78-day hospital stay that included lung failure.
The station also parted with Greg Silver, who had been Papa’s partner on their midday KNBR talk show. The pair will be replaced on their 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. show by John Lund, a longtime Bay Area radio voice who was fired by KNBR in November 2024.
Silver confirmed the news, which was first reported by SFGate.com. Papa declined comment. KNBR program director Mike Hohler did not respond to multiple requests for comment.
Greg Papa at the Oakland Coliseum when he was the voice of the Oakland Raiders
Papa, a 42-year broadcasting veteran and four-time California Sportscaster of the Year, has a separate contract with the San Francisco 49ers. He’s served as the team radio play-by-play man since 2019. His employment status with the organization remains unchanged, a team spokesman said.
Papa recently spoke with the Chronicle to detail his health journey since he underwent a successful bone marrow transplant on March 4. He is at home, using supplemental oxygen, but he’s cancer-free and his oxygen needs have significantly decreased since both lungs collapsed during his nearly three-month stay at UCSF Medical Center.
If truth be told the Wall Street Journal and its favorite tabloid The New York Post are praying for a victory in November by Dr. El-Sayed.
The WSJ editorial page will be in overdrive excoriating the Doctor for the next six years. It will be great for circulation and provide plenty of Red Meat to the WSJ crowd.
Wall Street Journal Opinion 8.5.2026
The March of the El-Sayed Democrats
His victory in Michigan’s Democratic Senate primary sets up the race of the year in November.
Abdul El-Sayed’s victory in Michigan’s Democratic Senate primary on Tuesday is no surprise in this year of rising radicalism in the party. But maybe hold off on French Revolution 2.0. Democratic voters made the race far closer than pollsters predicted, and now Mr. El-Sayed will have to persuade voters beyond Ann Arbor and the white liberal gentry.
New York Times – 8.6.2026The Daily Beast – 8.5.2026
Mr. El-Sayed, an articulate 41-year-old public-health official, was expected to roll over Rep. Haley Stevens. But his lead was 1% on Wednesday when the race was called. The narrow victory suggests many Democrats had second thoughts about nominating a man with radical views hailed by Bernie Sanders and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez as the next great progressive hope.
Progressive is an understatement. Mr. El-Sayed now says he’s a “capitalist,” distancing himself from the Democratic Socialists of America, but his agenda remains the full Bernie Sanders. He continues to support Medicare for All. He favors a wealth tax and an enormous expansion in federal entitlements for child care and more. He wants to abolish Immigration and Customs Enforcement, saying the agency “is about normalizing paramilitary force on our streets.”
He has a particular animus toward Israel and has campaigned with Hasan Piker, the Mao Zedong fanboy and Soviet Union admirer who has said the U.S. “deserved 9/11.” Mr. El-Sayed wants to cut off all U.S. military aid to Israel, which he accuses of genocide in Gaza.
For a President who is so media savvy and friendly when it suits him the blogger can only continue to look on with dismay as Donald Trump assaults the First Amendment and crush the right to publish.
During his second term Trump’s Department of Justice has already issued subpoenas against The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal and The Washington Post.
Does Trump seriously believe these mainstream media giants are standing idly by while its reporters are harassed by his DOJ? Thank goodness these publications are having none of it.
Excerpted from The New York Times 8.1.2026
Previously undisclosed subpoena, involving reporting on a failed 2019 SEAL Team 6 mission in North Korea, reflects the Trump’s expanding campaign to investigate leaks of what Trump labels secrets.
A freelance reporter has been fighting a subpoena from the Trump administration seeking to force him to reveal his sources for a New York Times article about a failed top secret mission in North Korea, according to people familiar with the matter.
Charlie Stadtlander, a spokesman for The Times, said in a statement that the subpoena to Matthew Cole was “part of the government’s escalating attacks on journalists, which should concern all Americans.” He added that the demand to disclose Mr. Cole’s sources “is another brazen and illegal attack from the administration designed to deny the public information of vital importance.”
The subpoena, which has not been previously disclosed, reflects the administration’s intensifying campaign to investigate leaks of government secrets by pressuring reporters to divulge their sources. Until President Trump began his second term, federal subpoenas to reporters were exceedingly rare.
In February, F.B.I. agents showed up at the New York home of the reporter, Matthew Cole, to deliver the grand jury subpoena, which was issued by prosecutors in Newport News, Va., according to the people familiar with the matter, who described the private conversations on the condition of anonymity.
The Times is providing a legal defense to Mr. Cole.
Trump jabs the media on Air Force One
The investigators are seeking his testimony about two years’ worth of information about Mr. Cole’s contacts and conversations, as they try to identify his sources for the article about the operation in North Korea, the people familiar with the matter said. It is unclear if the administration has also sought Mr. Cole’s phone and email data, as it has done in other cases.
Last fall, Mr. Cole, along with a staff reporter for The Times, Dave Philipps, revealed the details of a Navy SEAL Team 6 mission in 2019 that went awry. The article described how the SEAL members killed two or three unarmed North Koreans who appeared to have stumbled upon the mission, a classified operation to plant a secret eavesdropping device near the country’s coastline. The Times’s account, published in September, drew on interviews with two dozen people.
The article also noted that the Trump administration did not notify key members of Congress who oversee intelligence operations, before or after the mission, an omission that may have violated the law.
The Justice Department has not subpoenaed Mr. Philipps, according to people familiar with the matter. He declined to comment.
Mr. Cole disclosed more details of his reporting on his Substack newsletter, stating that despite learning about the mission in 2023, he waited for months before making calls to find out more given the sensitive nature of the reporting.
Lee's Perspective 