Photos – Lee Heidhues July 3, 4 and 5, 2021

It’s so nice to have a native bird inhabiting our backyard. A pair of California scrub jays arrive late in the afternoon while I am cleaning the area. They are not shy. One in particular comes within several feet of me and we eyeball each other.

Out here in the San Francisco countryside close by the Pacific Ocean, when the scrub jay is not sizing me up, the scrub jay is delivering a gift.

Wikipedia article on the California Scrub Jay

The California scrub jay (Aphelocoma californica) is a species of scrub jay native to western North America. It ranges from southern British Columbia throughout California and western Nevada near Reno to west of the Sierra Nevada. The California scrub jay was once lumped with Woodhouse’s scrub jay and collectively called the western scrub jay. The group was also lumped with the island scrub jay and the Florida scrub jay; the taxon was then called simply scrub jay.^[2] The California scrub jay is nonmigratory and can be found in urban areas, where it can become tame and will come to bird feeders. While many refer to scrub jays as “blue jays”, the blue jay is a different species of bird entirely.

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

Open letter to San Francisco Supervisor Connie Chan whose District includes the area adjacent to the Pacific Ocean

Lee Heidhues 7.8.2021

Supervisor Chan

I am beyond disappointed that you, who campaigned and describe yourself as a “Progressive,” can be cowed by a minority of shrill entitled motorists.

It is regrettable that rather than acknowledging Climate Change is a serious matter and planning for the future, you continue to enable the behavior of motorists. By doing so, you are abdicating any leadership role in promoting an alternative environmental vision for San Francisco.

The temperature in Portland reached 115 degrees last week. Nearly 100 people have died. The Great Walkway is part of the Pacific Coast and is impacted by Climate Change.

The entire Great Highway is a castle made of sand falling into the sea. The automobile is largely responsible for the erosion of this land by the Pacific Ocean.

Nearly two weeks ago I sent you a Blog post titled “Progressive Supervisor Wants to Destroy Great Walkway.” In the past two weeks 1116 people have thus far looked at the Post.

I have been attacked on Nextdoor for months. Why? I strongly support The Great Walkway. I continue to analyze what the angry motorists have to say. The motorists’ rhetoric is a repetitive lamentation about being inconvenienced to take a detour and adding a bit more time to their trip.

Connie, on Nextdoor you are receiving misguided praise for having aligned yourself with the shrill motorists during the June 22 Supervisors meeting to review the SFMTA proposal.

You firmly opposed a permanently car free Great Walkway and bowed to the strident motorists. This, despite the fact over 70 percent of the participants who testified and submitted comments on June 22 favored The Great Walkway.

Most importantly you know that in 2023 the Great Highway from Sloat to Skyline reclamation project will begin. Six months into the project the roadway will be permanently closed to cars. Once the motorists get to Sloat by the Zoo they will have to engage in new behaviors by motoring around Lake Merced to reach the southern bound roadway.

Stand by your election campaign as a “Progressive.” Take a stand for the environment.

Lee Heidhues 6.30.2021

It’s about time. Reminds me of the 1993 film The Firm based on the John Grisham novel. The bad guys, who happen to be lawyers, get busted in the end having done fraudulent client billing and sent the invoices via USPS. Translation –  Mail Fraud via Interstate commerce and a violation of the law. Whatever it takes.

Didn’t Al Capone end up in Alcatraz for tax fraud? 

I commend Cyrus Vance and the New York AG for continuing their  relentless and diligent pursuit of this guy, Trump.  His accounting in a Court of law is long overdue and richly deserved.

This is only the beginning. Trump is finally being held to account for his decades of cruelty, lies and financial misdeeds.

“It’s only the beginning what I want to feel forever..only just the start..” sang the group Chicago in their 1969 debut album with the song, “Beginnings.”  

Excerpted from the New York Times 6.30.2021

The former president’s family business and its chief financial officer, Allen Weisselberg, are expected to appear in court on Thursday.

Predictably the mainstream American media, often willing collaborators of the Federal government, are not covering this story.  A story which parallels release of the Pentagon Papers by Daniel Ellsberg 50 years ago this month detailing the history of American involvement in Vietnam 

The ongoing quest by the American government to extradite and persecute Wikileaks founder Julian Assange is based on a tissue of lies and the American government’s embarrassment at having its dirty work made public.

Julian Assange has been incarcerated for years. His alleged crime. Making public the wrong doing, illegal and criminal activities of the American government in pursuit of its foreign policy goals.

Now we learn that a key witness in the sham American prosecution is himself a convicted criminal and an admitted perjurer. 

Excerpted from Stundin – Iceland 6.26.2021

A maj­or wit­n­ess in the United States’ Depart­ment of Justice ca­se against Ju­li­an Assange has admitted to fabricat­ing key accusati­ons in the indict­ment against the Wiki­leaks found­er.

Sigurdur Ingi Thordarson now admits to Stundin that Assange never asked him to hack or access phone recordings of MPs. His new claim is that he had in fact received some files from a third party who claimed to have recorded MPs and had offered to share them with Assange without having any idea what they actually contained. He claims he never checked the contents of the files or even if they contained audio recordings as his third party source suggested. He further admits the claim, that Assange had instructed or asked him to access computers in order to find any such recordings, is false.

The witness, who has a documented history with sociopathy and has received several convictions for sexual abuse of minors and wide-ranging financial fraud, made the admission in a newly published interview in Stundin where he also confessed to having continued his crime spree whilst working with the Department of Justice and FBI and receiving a promise of immunity from prosecution.

The man in question, Sigurdur Ingi Thordarson, was recruited by US authorities to build a case against Assange after misleading them to believe he was previously a close associate of his. In fact he had volunteered on a limited basis to raise money for Wikileaks in 2010 but was found to have used that opportunity to embezzle more than $50,000 from the organization.

Julian Assange was visiting Thordarson’s home country of Iceland around this time due to his work with Icelandic media and members of parliament in preparing the Icelandic Modern Media Initiative, a press freedom project that produced a parliamentary resolution supporting whistleblowers and investigative journalism.

The United States is currently seeking Assange’s extradition from the United Kingdom in order to try him for espionage relating to the release of leaked classified documents. If convicted, he could face up to 175 years in prison. The indictment has sparked fears for press freedoms in the United States and beyond and prompted strong statements in support of Assange from Amnesty International, Reporters without borders, the editorial staff of the Washington Post and many others.

US officials presented an updated version of an indictment against him to a Magistrate court in London last summer. The veracity of the information contained therein is now directly contradicted by the main witness, whose testimony it is based on.

The court documents refer to Mr Thordarson simply as “Teenager” (a reference to his youthful appearance rather than true age, he is 28 years old) and Iceland as “NATO Country 1” but make no real effort to hide the identity of either. They purport to show that Assange instructed Thordarson to commit computer intrusions or hacking in Iceland.

With regards to the actual accusations made in the indictment Baraitser sided with the arguments of the American legal team, including citing the specific samples from Iceland which are now seriously called into question.

https://stundin.is/grein/13627/

Photo above – Julian Assange and Sigurdur Ingi Thordarson

The ongoing and never ending story of war between the drug cartels in Mexico receives scant attention in the American media.  Which is strange.  Mexico is America’s neighbor to the south and much of the drugs being produced in Mexico are destined for the American consumer.

The closest Americans come to geting a view of the drug cartels are through movies and books.  Films such as Traffic directed by Steven Soderbergh(2000) and Sicario directed by Denis Villeneuve (2015) come to mind.  Books by Don Winslow. The Power of the Dog (2005) and The Cartel (2015) closely examine the war on drugs and its connections with American law enforcement.

Deutsche Welle 6.26.2021

The bullet-ridden bodies  (photo above) of the cartel members were discovered in the north-central state of Zacatecas. Earlier this week, two missing police officers were found hanging from a bridge in the same area.

Eighteen bodies were discovered Friday after what appeared to be a shootout between members of rival drug gangs in northern Mexico. The deadly incident occurred in a remote area in the northwestern state of Zacatecas, and came days after a similar shootout in a town close to the US border.

Local media reported several similar shootouts this week in the same area.

What happened?

State security department spokeswoman Rocio Aguilar said there was evidence the shootout resulted from a confrontation between gunmen from the Sinaloa and Jalisco criminal cartels over drug trafficking routes. Three vehicles, one of them burned out, were also found at the scene.

On Wednesday, seven people were also shot to death in a neighboring city in the state.

On the same day, the bodies of two abducted police officers were found hanging from a bridge in the state capital.

Gunmen from cartels often hang bodies to send out a message to either authorities or rival members, but they seldom target law enforcement officials.

Aguilar said authorities have not found a link between the discovery of the officers’ bodies and the latest gun battle.

What triggered the shootout?

The state of Zacatecas, once dominated by the old Zetas cartel, has been the scene of many inter-cartel battles.

The township of Valparaiso, where the shooting occurred, borders Jalisco state, a stronghold of a powerful cartel called Jalisco Nueva Generacion (Jalisco New Generation). Authorities said cartel members have been waging a violent campaign to dominate drug trafficking routes.

Several other groups, like Sinaloa, Gulf and Northeast drug cartels are also involved in violent turf battles in the area. Mexico’s drug wars have claimed more than 300,000 lives since 2006, when the government started deploying federal army troops to fight the country’s powerful cartels.

https://www.dw.com/en/mexico-18-dead-after-shootout-between-rival-drug-cartels/a-58054191

Jerry Brown’s nearly 50 year career in California as three time Governor, Attorney General, Secretary of State and Mayor of Oakland formally ended in 2018. His legacy for innovation, fiscal conservatism, forward thinking and unique ideas are his trademark.

Jerry Brown’s long time spiritual and political advisor Jacques Barzaghi was emblematic of his style of governance.

Excerpted from The New York Times 6.25.2021

Whether as policy adviser, interior decorator or barber, he was a Zen-like presence in that California politician’s orbit, and always dressed in black.

Jacques Barzaghi, who was a longtime confidant, alter ego and soul mate of former Gov. Jerry Brown of California and known for his Zen sensibility and noir presence from boot to beret, died on June 1 at his home in Normandy, France. He was 82.

On one occasion, asked for his thoughts after touring a state prison to report on conditions there, Mr. Barzaghi reportedly replied, “We are all prisoners.”

Intense, bald and heavily tattooed, Mr. Barzaghi, who wore wire-rimmed glasses and dressed in black from head to toe, cut an austere figure and was given to vaguely existential utterances.

He died in his sleep without an identifiable cause, although he had a history of heart ailments, his daughter Tatiana Barzaghi said.

Mr. Barzaghi (pronounced bar-ZAH-ghee), who was born in France, began his association with Mr. Brown in the early 1970s, when Mr. Brown was California’s secretary of state.

The two were inseparable for three decades, through Mr. Brown’s first two terms as governor, three unsuccessful campaigns for the Democratic presidential nomination, a failed bid for the Senate, a stint as chairman of the California Democratic Party, a move to Japan to study Zen Buddhism and much of his tenure as mayor of Oakland. It all ended in 2004, when Mr. Brown, as mayor, fired him after Mr. Barzaghi’s wife reported a violent domestic dispute.

Mr. Brown declined to comment for this obituary.

Mr. Barzaghi served in multiple official and informal roles for Mr. Brown, including as barber, interior decorator and armed bodyguard. He was deeply involved in almost everything Mr. Brown did, from helping him make policy decisions to picking out his trademark double-breasted suits.

“He lends creativity and imagination to the administration and serves as a person Jerry can bounce ideas off of,” The Los Angeles Times quoted a Brown aide as saying in 1977, the year Mr. Barzaghi became an American citizen with Mr. Brown’s help.

“We are not disorganized,” he told The New York Times during Mr. Brown’s 1992 bid for president. “Our campaign transcends understanding.”

Top photo:  Jerry Brown and Jacques Barzaghi in 1992

Everything is politics whether it be in Washington, DC,  San Francisco. Every place and everywhere.

Fans want to entertain the fantasy the sports world is immune from political decisions. Fans want to believe that politics don’t enter into the equation in women’s sports.

Wrong. Read the following piece by San Francisco Chronicle sports scribe Ann Killion. Full transperancy.  We both attended the same high school.  Admittedly years apart.

San Francisco Chronicle – Ann Killion 6.25.2021

The Olympic rosters are taking shape, and the story is not only who makes Team USA, but who doesn’t.

Some athletes, like Stephen Curry, make the choice themselves. Others, like Cal swimmer Nathan Adrian, lose out by a hair: Adrian missed his fourth Olympic team by 0.25 of a second, but had beautiful perspective, as both a testicular cancer survivor and new father of a baby girl.

And then there’s the case of Stanford alum Nneka Ogwumike.

She got caught up in the politics of women’s basketball — politics that desperately needs to change.

“I’m physically sick about this,” Ogwumike’s college coach, Tara VanDerveer, said this week. “It’s like a punch in the gut.”

Ogwumike was shockingly, inexplicably left off the U.S. women’s basketball roster for Tokyo when the team was announced Monday. One of the most accomplished players in the women’s game, this was expected to be Ogwumike’s year — she was left off the team in both 2012 and 2016.

The omission rattled the women’s basketball world.

Derek Fisher, the coach of Ogwumike’s WNBA Sparks team, called it “a travesty.”

Dawn Staley, the coach of the Olympic team who does not sit on the selection committee, said the omission “breaks my heart.”

Ogwumike’s former Sparks teammate Candace Parker said the decision “was bulls—,” adding, “How many times are we going to say it’s unfair? How many times are we going to say it’s not politics?”

And that’s the real issue. Not injury, but politics.

Yes, Ogwumike, 30, has been battling a knee sprain, but she was expected to be back in time for the Olympics. What public comments anyone on the selection committee made implied Ogwumike’s injury was a factor. Yet there appears to be a double standard. Diana Taurasi, 39, has a fractured sternum and also has been unable to practice for several weeks, yet she made her fifth Olympic team.

So, where does the politics come in? As usual, in the world of women’s basketball, it has to do with Geno Auriemma and UConn.

Auriemma, who coached the team to gold medals in 2012 and 2016, is on the selection committee and remains a special adviser to the Olympic team. He has enormous influence over everything that happens with the team, and it seems to be no coincidence that whenever a player is left off the team, they are replaced by a UConn player.

In this case, Napheesa Collier made her first team, likely at the expense of Ogwumike. Collier is a UConn alumna and plays for the Minnesota Lynx. The five-person selection committee includes Auriemma, Lynx assistant Katie Smith and Connecticut Sun coach Curt Miller, whose WNBA team is closely tied to the UConn program.

In 2012, half the 12-person roster were UConn products. In 2016, there were five UConn players. This year, there will again be five of Auriemma’s players (plus half the roster in the new 3×3 version is from UConn). It gives credence to the longstanding belief that Auriemma uses promises of Olympic medals in his recruiting pitches.

Stanford has not had a player on the roster since Tara VanDerveer was the head coach in 1996, when she had two former players. That seems odd. It’s also worth noting that once her stint as an Olympic gold medal-winning coach was over, VanDerveer has never been a “special adviser” or placed on the selection committee for the team.

She is the only WNBA MVP to never make an Olympic team. She has been on two FIBA World Cup gold medal teams. She is a six-time WNBA All-Star, a former No. 1 pick and Rookie of the Year and has been totally, unconditionally committed to Team USA — making every camp for the past five years.

“She has been so loyal, and that loyalty isn’t reciprocated,” VanDerveer said. “It’s so disrespectful.

“She deserves it, she’s earned it, she has waited in line. She doesn’t need to be on the Olympics to validate who she is. But it is so painful for all of us who love her.”

 

Ogwumike, one of the most gracious athletes I’ve ever covered, did not return a request for comment, and has kept her thoughts private since the announcement. She is a natural leader, is the president of the WNBA Players Association and has been key to so much of the important groundbreaking work the WNBA has been involved in in recent years.

https://www.sfchronicle.com/sports/annkillion/article/Stunning-Olympic-snub-of-Nneka-Ogwumike-about-16272185.php

Liz and Lee Heidhues 6.24.2021

“I pledge to prioritize the health of our families, climate, and democracy over fossil fuel industry profits,” vowed San Francisco supervisorial candidate Connie Chan in 2020.

“If elected, I will represent every resident in District 1. I understand that my job as a Supervisor is to represent those who are vulnerable and often ignored by the rich and powerful”.

The effect of climate change is all around us. Changes in atmospheric CO2 correlate with human emissions of CO2.

At the SF County Transportation Authority (SFCTA) Board meeting, now Supervisor Connie Chan attempted to destroy The Great Walkway Park. She tried to remove the SFCTA’s recommendations for a full “24/7” promenade pilot.

D1 Supervisor Chan did not speak up as an ardent defender of the Great Walkway Park in this crucial meeting to determine the fate of the open space.

Did Supervisor Chan flip-flop on her 2020 campaign promises in District 1’s Supervisor’s race?   

Was Connie Chan just catering to the Progressive vote when she campaigned as a friend of the environment?

Progressives work on curbing the effects of climate change, ensuring that the quality of our air and water take precedence over car commuters. Progressives play a pivotal role in anti-pollution movements and consumption patterns of energy. Progressives initiate changes in reaction to the increased problems associated with industrialization, in which the automobile plays a major role.

Connie Chan, Supervisor of D1 where Liz was born and raised and where we live still, is not embracing her campaign promises.

Connie Chan’s flip-flop is not surprising. Put bluntly she caved to a strident, aggressive minority of entitled motorists.

Studies show that two-thirds of the drivers on The Great Highway were car commuters driving between the Outer Richmond, where Supervisor Chan lives, to the South Bay, before the Pandemic. Rather than look beyond their self interest at the big environmental picture, she continues to enable their behavior.

Connie, what do you remember about your childhood? Do you remember being driven around in a car on a freeway, or do you remember the joys of bicycling, roller-skating, and running around with other kids you knew?

The negative consequences of cars include:  the use of non-renewable fuels, a dramatic increase in accidental deaths, the disconnection of community, the decrease of local economy, the rise in obesity and cardiovascular diseases, the emission of air and noise pollution, the emission of greenhouse gases, the generation of traffic, the segregation of pedestrians and other active mobility, and urban decay.

The Great Walkway expresses something that cars will never express.

The Great Walkway expresses human society on the move in healthy, sustainable ways.

The Great Walkway Park is an environmental dream come true for San Francisco.

The Great Walkway Park is D1 Supervisor Chan’s wake-up call to get her priorities straight.

Photos: Liz Heidhues 6.22.2021 Taken while the SF County Transportation Authority Board meeting was in progress.

Is this incident  racist or simply teenagers behaving badly?

Does it warrant firing of the coach whose players were involved in the tortilla toss (pictured above)?

Excerpted from San Diego Union Tribune 6.24.2021

The Coronado Unified School Board voted unanimously to fire their head basketball coach Tuesday night, days after someone threw tortillas at an opposing team Saturday night.

Some people have said it was a racist incident, considering Orange Glen is a predominantly Latino school.

But others say it is too soon to jump to conclusions and the incident may not have been racist.

According to witnesses, Coronado head basketball coach JD Laaperi allegedly cursed at an Orange Glen coach after the game, saying “That’s why you don’t talk (expletive). Get your kids and get the (expletive) out of here.”

The board members took the vote behind closed doors and did not comment further. During closed session the board discussed but did not take action on student discipline.

Calls for the punishment of those involved in the tortilla throwing incident crescendoed throughout the day Tuesday.

After a Saturday night division championship game between Coronado High and Orange Glen High, a high school in Escondido, at least two people threw tortillas at the Orange Glen team.

A motto of the Longhorn state is “Don’t mess with Texas.”

Evidently Gov. Greg Abbott has decided it is ok for humans to mess with canines. Shame on him.  The governor himself owns two dogs. Go figure.

Excerpted from The Guardian 6.22.2021

The governor of Texas has pulled a surprise move, vetoing a bipartisan bill that would have provided greater protections for dogs against human abuse.

The Republican governor, Greg Abbott, vetoed a bill on Friday that would have made unlawful restraint of a dog a criminal offense, sending animal rights activists and legislators on both sides of the aisle into a fray and spurring the hashtag #AbbottHatesDogs.

Abbott owns two golden retrievers named Pancake and Peaches, who occasionally make social media appearances.

“I have to hand it to the governor. ‘Anti-voting rights, pro-animal cruelty’ is a bold re-election message,” tweeted Julián Castro, a former Democratic presidential candidate, who included animal rights in his policy platform, and former mayor of San Antonio.

Law enforcement agencies expressed their disappointment over the bill’s downfall to the Houston Chronicle.

“Governor Abbott says that the current Texas statute already protects dogs, but this bill – which was carried with active support from sheriffs, law enforcement and animal control officers – would have clarified the vague language that makes the statute completely unenforceable,” said Shelby Bobosky, the Texas Humane Legislative Network’s executive director, in an emailed statement to the Guardian.

She said the bill would have provided a cleanup of basic standards for restraining dogs and could have protected dogs left outside in very hot and very cold temperatures. Bobosky said the network, which advocated for the bill, was “devastated” by the veto.

The move is being castigated across social media.

State senate bill 474, dubbed the Safe Outdoor Dogs Act, aimed to ban the use of heavy chains to keep dogs tethered. The bill had bipartisan support in the legislature, passing the house 83-32 and the senate 28-3.

In his veto, Abbott said state statutes already existed to protect dogs from animal cruelty, and the penalties proposed in the bill of $500 to $2,000, and jail time of up to 180 days, were excessive. The bill said that dog owners could have dogs outside but could not restrain them with short lines and chains or anything that could cause injury and pain to the dog.

Dog owners would have faced a $500 penalty for a first offense and class C misdemeanor, and the next penalty would have been a class B misdemeanor, for a fine of up to $2,000 and up to three months in jail.

Abbott said Texas was not a place for that kind of “micro-managing and over-criminalization”.

“I’m disappointed in the governor,” the state senator Eddie Lucio Jr, a Democrat who sponsored the bill, told the Texas Tribune. “I don’t agree with everything he does, but I respect him when it comes to quality of life and protecting life. I want to include dogs in that issue.”

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/jun/22/texas-governor-dogs-bill-veto